Clashing Fangs
by Ruthie of the Wildcats
Summary: [Hiatus][KibaOC][AU]When the wandering Ookamizuka clan finds their way to Konoha, Kiba meets the girl of his dreams. But years of interclan hatred threaten to tear the two apart. Can their Romeo and Julietesque love survive?
1. Ookamizuka Arrival

**It took a while, I know, but I finally got the next story up! All right, those who read my first Naruto fic probably all hate Kiba by now. I never intended for you to hate him, but I guess that's just what happened. Now you get to like him again! Why? Because you get to see what a nice guy he can be, given the chance.**

**Kiba****: You're so sweet, Ruthie.**

**(glomps him) Yeah, now you say it! Heh, he hated me for the longest time, you know. But now we're cool again. Anyways, I'm getting way off track...as usual. I'm sorry to say that this isn't a slash pairing. Nope, in fact, it's an OC kind of thing. (giggle) It makes me feel cool to use acronyms like this.**

**Full Summary****: When the wandering Ookamizuka clan finds their way to Konoha, Inuzuka Kiba finds the girl of his dreams. But something isn't right. His mother Tsume and sister Hana seem to know something he doesn't know, and they won't tell him outright what it is. Can Kiba and Toboe's Romeo and Juliet-esque love stand firm in the face of old vendettas and years of inter-clan hatred?**

"Beautiful day for a walk, eh, Akamaru?" Inuzuka Kiba asked cheerily as he glanced down at the long-legged dog walking beside him. Akamaru wagged his tail, barking in agreement. Kiba smiled. "Yep. Sometimes, you just have to get away from training and missions and just smell the flowers."

_We're not 'getting away from' anything,_ Akamaru pointed out. _Kurenai-sensei gave us a break for the day, remember?_

Kiba grinned, kneeling down to scratch behind the pup's floppy ears. "I know, I know," he said. "But still, it is nice to get away, isn't it, just the two of us?" Akamaru nodded in agreement. Kiba sighed and looked out into the distance, if you could call it that. The forest was close-knit, so all he really saw was the trees. "That Shino can get on my nerves sometimes."

Akamaru nodded knowingly, then hopped up onto Kiba's head, one of his usual perches. _There's something different about the woods today,_ the dog remarked. _I can smell it. Do you?_ Kiba shook his head. _No? Well, we'll just have to see for ourselves, won't we?_ He thrust out a paw. _Onwards!_

Kiba laughed as he bounded ahead through the sun-dappled woods outside of Konoha, his village. It was, as he had said to his partner not long ago, a beautiful day for a walk. The sun was hot, but deep inside the forest, it was reduced to mere speckles of warm light scattered throughout patches of cool shade. The sky above was clear with only a few cumulus clouds bubbled across the brilliant blue background. A gentle breeze ruffled the leaves overhead, and they murmured together in some secret tree language. On a lark, the Inuzuka youth reached up and grabbed a thick, low branch and swung himself over it in a full circle. Akamaru let out a sharp, wordless bark of surprise and gripped Kiba's head tightly. Kiba laughed again.

"Gotcha, Akamaru!" he teased, tickling the dog's nose. Akamaru gave him a gentle, playful nip before leaping down to the ground.

_If you're going to play like that, I'll walk,_ he growled, but his tail was wagging. Kiba smirked and started walking again. He wasn't sure where he was going, but then again, when he walked with Akamaru he usually didn't. He let himself wander aimlessly. Wherever he went, Akamaru followed alongside him. The two of them never went anywhere alone if they could help it.

Another breeze whispered through the forest, this time blowing lower. As an Inuzuka, Kiba had a sharper nose than most, and he could even gather chakra to his nose to enhance his sense of smell even further. He did this now, tilting his head to the wind and sniffing hard. The slight wind had brought a strange scent to his nose, and he was determined to get a better sniff of it. Akamaru had noticed the scent as well, and he took a step in its direction before glancing back at his partner. Kiba nodded. "Let's go check it out," he said. The two of them darted off in the direction the smell had come from.

;-:-;-:-;

The infamous duo of chunin boy and dog skidded to a halt at the edge of a small drop-off. Kiba was panting from his run, and he dropped down to his knees as he panted. He didn't know how long he had been chasing the scent for, but it didn't matter to him now. He reached out and ruffled Akamaru's ears, then flopped back onto his bottom to rest. "Well," he whispered, "it's only been getting stronger, Akamaru. Do you think we found it?"

Akamaru sniffed the air again. _I think so,_ he barked. He prodded a few bush branches with his paw. _Whatever it is, it's probably down there._ Kiba nodded and reached forwards with one hand to brush aside the branches. His dark eyes widened at what he saw.

The forest dropped off for about twenty feet into a small valley of sorts. That wasn't what interested him. He had seen that place before. What he couldn't tear his eyes away from were the people setting up a sort of camp down there. They all had the lean, muscular bodies of nomads, and something shaggy trailed after each and every one of them. Some of them were unpacking and handing bundles of stuff to others in the group. Kiba watched in amazement as those who were given the packages scurried around and, once they found a suitable spot, unpacked small tents. Other people were pulling out food from their backframe packs or the travoise toted by the sturdy animals, and handing it off to those who had produced pots and pans. An officious-looking man stood at the head of the group, barking out orders, which were promptly carried out with quick salutes and nods. _He must be their leader,_ Kiba guessed, seeing how much power the man had.

As he looked a little closer, Kiba noticed something that didn't quite fit in with the picture of burly adults: a young girl. She was darting from group to group, sometimes carrying a bundle to a waiting group of three or four, sometimes stepping down on a tent stake to push it into the ground. Whatever she was doing, she seemed to have her hands comfortably full keeping up with the older members of her group. Kiba was impressed by the serene grace and deftness with which she carried out her tasks. It seemed to him that she had been doing this for a very long time. He also noticed that everywhere she went, a white, furry beast trotted after her. It was a constant help to her, whether it was toting a clanging pot by the handle or pulling a tent taut with its teeth and backwards straining paws.

Another breeze drifted up to his nose, bringing him the scent of the nomads. It was much clearer this time, having come to him straight from the source without picking up other woodsy smells. Kiba realized why it was that the scent that had so intrigued him earlier. It was hauntingly similar to that of dog, a smell he had known his whole life, but it was different. It smelled darker, heavier, wilder, muskier. It smelled of running in the night and tackling problems as a family bound by blood and loyalty. His mouth dropped open slightly in amazement. Just the smell of the group made him quivery. He looked down to Akamaru, and the tawny-furred ninken gave the scent a name. _They're wolves,_ he murmured, sounding both awed and scared.

"Wolves?" Kiba repeated softly. He looked down at the newcomers again, in particular at the animals following each one of them. Now that he was really looking, he could see their long, narrow muzzles, their graceful legs, their thick pelts and bushy tails, their hard-padded paws. They looked like dogs, but different. "So that's what wolves look like? I've never seen a real one before."

_Those are wolves,_ Akamaru confirmed, nodding seriously. _For a while, their scent had me confused. I thought they were just wild dogs at first._ Kiba rose halfway to his feet, ready to run down and give the wolf clan a warm Konoha welcome, but he was stopped by a soft bark from Akamaru. _Don't go down there,_ he warned. _You smell like dogs, and if there's one thing a wolf can't stand, it's a dog. They'd tear you apart!_

"But I can't just stand here and do nothing," Kiba protested, slumping back down. He found himself watching the girl again. She was bickering animatedly with a young woman, gesturing fiercely and stomping a foot to emphasize her words. The older girl, who couldn't have been older than Hana, watched her young friend with cool eyes. She said something in a soft voice, but Kiba couldn't hear what she had said. The golden-pelted wolf beside her tossed its sleek head scornfully at the equally temperless white wolf. Finally, in the climax of her argument, the girl turned to the commanding man and presented her argument to him. The man studied her carefully, the pointed out towards the forest and gave her an order that Kiba couldn't quite make out. The girl stomped her foot down in frustration and beckoned to her wolf companion with a swift, sharp flick of her hand. The pair trudged sullenly away from the camp and into the woods. "Wonder what that was all about."

_I'm not sure, but it looks like she doesn't want to do what they're telling her to,_ Akamaru muttered. He shook himself vigorously as another gust of wolf-scent washed over them. _Kiba, I don't like this place. We should get back to the village now. It's probably getting late, and Hana will be worried about you._

"You can go back," Kiba told him. "But I'm staying here." Akamaru groaned softly. He wouldn't go anywhere without his human partner. Kiba hated to force the dog to do what he didn't want to do, but he was just too curious about this wolf clan to head back. "Come on, let's find a better place to watch from." He held open the front of his jacket, and Akamaru hopped inside. The boy raced off into the woods to find a new lookout perch. For his own sake, he decided to get closer, but for Akamaru's sake, he decided he wouldn't venture too close.

"Go get firewood, Toboe," a soft voice growled sarcastically, mimicking the voice of an adult. Kiba froze. "Pff! I'm telling you, Shiromaru, it's just not fair. I have my moontime, I'm a woman now! A woman doesn't go for firewood. That's a pup's job! That's an Omega's job! It's _not _a woman's job."

A gruff voice barked its own opinion. The first voice scoffed again. "Well I _know_ I'm the youngest, but that doesn't mean I'm still a pup! And it doesn't mean that Father _always _has to take Fumoto's side, either. So _what _if she's older?"

Kiba looked fearfully down at Akamaru. The wind had shifted, and he felt it blowing across the fur of his hood. He was upwind of the voice now. As if on cue, he heard heavy sniffing, followed by a sharp snarl. Akamaru shivered. "What is it, Shiromaru?" the voice asked. Kiba heard softer sniffing. "Oh...well, let's go check it out. Mother and Father should know about it."

The Inuzuka boy jerked his head from side to side as he sought an escape route. He hadn't liked the tone of the voice, and he was determined to get away from it as fast as he could. He spotted a low tree branch nearby and jumped for it.

"Howoo!" the voice called cheerily. It sounded like a greeting, but at the same time, like an eerie howl. Kiba struggled to pull himself up onto the limb, but found himself pulling too hard. He slipped right over the branch to land in a confused heap below it. Bushes rustled around him. Before he could move, the girl he had seen earlier stepped out in front of him.

She had looked so much younger when he had watched her from above. Now that she was closer, he could see that she was older than he had thought at first, probably about his own age. She had the same look as the rest of her clan, wiry and muscular with long limbs. Her eyes were incredibly dark; he thought they were black until he realized they were just a ridiculously deep shade of brown. Her hair fell down her back in a low ponytail in thick, brown waves. Her skin was a sort of medium brown, and Kiba guessed she was used to traveling in hot sun. She dressed simply, in a crimson vest and brown khaki shorts that exposed her a little of her tawny-skinned belly. She wore thick gloves on her hands, almost gauntlets, and her boots were rugged and made to last for years. Finally, Kiba noticed something that chilled him. Gracing both her cheeks were two triangular shapes tattooed in dark cerulean blue. They were like his own Inuzuka Fang markings, only flipped upside down, so that they pointed upwards.

While he was at it, he studied her wolf as well. It didn't take more than a quick look to determine that the creature was male. His shaggy white fur was stained pale brown on his paws and a good way up his lanky limbs from the dusty forest trails. He was a good deal taller than Akamaru, but Kiba could tell just from looking at him that he was nowhere near finished growing. His eyes were eerie yellow shade and looked like golden moons hanging in a cloudy, white sky. He bared his sharp, white puppy-fangs in a snarl that was clearly directed at Akamaru. Kiba stood up, placing an arm protectively over the dog in his coat.

For the longest time, both youth were stock-still, each evaluating the other carefully. The girl cocked her head to the side at the sight of Akamaru. Her eyes were smiling, as was her mouth. She nodded her head in greeting. Kiba returned the nod, a little stiffly. Akamaru gave him a warning whine to stay on his toes around the newcomers. Finally, he spoke. "So..." he began a little lamely. "I guess you and your clan will be staying here for...a while?"

"Oh!" the girl said softly, looking a little startled. Her voice was unusually mellow and carried a tinge of an accent Kiba had never heard before. "Are we outside your village?" She glanced down and side to side. "Well, we're only nomads, so I'm sure they won't mind us staying for a few days," she continued under her breath, pacing a few steps. "We can probably trade, too. Besides, we've already got the camp half set up, so I don't think anyone will want to leave now, especially not Father—he's so stubborn about these things. He'd rather fight than leave now." She looked back up at Kiba. "You don't mind, do you?"

Kiba wondered how much of her little monologue he was supposed to have heard. He hesitated. "Well, I'm not really in a position to say yes or no for the village," he told her. "But I can probably find someone who is. I don't think anyone would have a problem with your clan staying. After all, our village is back in the woods a ways from here." The girl's face lit up, and she smiled even more. Kiba felt a jolt of warmth. She was so pretty when she smiled.

Then he noticed that her smile wasn't the only thing causing him warmth. Now he realized that he had been sitting in a patch of hot sunlight for a while with his fur-edged hood up. He pushed back the hood. It made things a little better, but not too much. He would either have to take off his jacket or move out of the light. He chose to move, since he doubted Akamaru wanted to be on the ground with the wolf close by. When he flipped away his hood, the girl's eyes widened for a few seconds, as though he had startled her. But, he saw, the look in her eyes was not surprise, but a sort of confirmation. She nodded to herself.

"What's your name?" Kiba asked.

"Toboe," the girl replied. "Ookamizuka Toboe."

"Kiba. Inuzuka Kiba." He paused. "Ookamizuka...House of the Wolf God."

"Inuzuka, House of the Dog." Toboe flashed him another grin. "The wolf here is Shiromaru."

"This is Akamaru," Kiba told her, gesturing to the shaking dog in his jacket. Toboe looked a little confused. "I know, he's not really red right now, but he can be under certain circumstances." He wasn't quite sure how to explain Akamaru's color change to this girl, so he left it at that. Toboe seemed to understand there was more to the story, but she didn't press him.

Toboe glanced up at the sky, then around her. "Listen, Kiba, I have to go now. What direction is your village in?" Kiba pointed. "Great. We'll probably stop by later today. I have to get working and get wood." She turned to go. Kiba stopped her.

"I can help if you want me to," he offered. Toboe's dark eyes flashed a look of uncertainty, and she shook her head.

"No, it's all right. I can do it myself. Shiromaru helps too." She started to walk away. "Maybe I'll see you around, Kiba."

"Maybe," Kiba repeated, although he had a feeling he wanted it to be a little more certain than 'maybe.' Toboe turned back, nodded again, then slipped back into the forest with Shiromaru behind her. The wolf turned around at the last second and gave Kiba and Akamaru a venomous look before trotting after his human partner. Kiba watched them go openmouthed. Then, nodding to Akamaru, he bounded off in the direction of Konoha. The wandering Ookamizuka clan had found its way to Konoha, and he was determined to give them the biggest welcome he could manage—if only so that he could learn more about the mysterious girl Toboe.


	2. Summer Storm

The sun was about halfway set by the time Kiba and Akamaru returned to Konoha, indicating that it was somewhere between three and four o'clock in the afternoon. The puffy white clouds from earlier were already starting to mass together into a sinister lump of darkening gray. Kiba could feel the air pressure starting to drop. _There might well be a storm tonight,_ he thought, looking up at the sky. He felt a tickle of foreboding. _I hope Toboe and her clan are all right in those tents of theirs. Maybe we should welcome them in before the storm breaks._

"Kiba-kun!" a gentle voice cried. "There you are!" Kiba shifted his eyes down from the clouds to look at the speaker, Hyuuga Hinata. The pale-eyed girl smiled shyly. "You've been out for a while now, we didn't know where you were. We've been looking for you. Where were you?"

"Just taking a walk," Kiba told her breezily, grinning. Hinata sighed and smiled in her usual, sheepish way. "Getting away from _You-Know-Who_ is all."

" 'You-Know-Who' wouldn't possibly be me, would it?" Kiba couldn't help a slight twitch of the face as he turned to meet the eyes—or rather, the sunglasses—of his other teammate, Aburame Shino. It was no secret that the two boys had trouble getting along with each other. Shino was quiet and reserved, while Kiba was loud and occasionally annoying. Shino waved nonchalantly. "I don't recall you taking such long walks, Kiba. You've been out for a solid four hours."

"Today was different," Kiba replied. "I just...needed to check something out." He looked from side to side cautiously. The street was empty except for the three chunin. He dropped his voice to a whisper. The other two gathered around him, and the group of them gave the appearance of a sports team reviewing their next play. "Listen, don't tell anyone yet, but there's a bunch of wanderers outside the village. I met one of them. I think she said they were traders or something."

"I think we should tell someone," Hinata said. "Hokage-sama should know about this, Kiba-kun." Her expression changed. "Wait...is there something you're not telling us?"

Shino leaned a little closer. "Yes, you do seem to be acting a bit strangely." He looked over at Hinata. "I think there may be a girl involved—a girl with a little more that interested him than information."

Kiba scoffed, although just how much Shino could see—even with his dark glasses—disturbed him greatly. The Aburame boy could read anyone, especially Kiba, like a book, with quick, harsh analytical accuracy. He dropped back a pace, ducking away from the rest of his team. "I don't know what you're talking about, Shino," he blustered. "I mean—of course I'm interested in more than information. They have wolves with them, and wolves are pretty much the same as dogs—I'm just curious to see if they're anything like my clan...that's all." Akamaru yipped in agreement.

"I'm sure it is," Shino murmured. "By the way, Hana told us to find you." Kiba nodded, glad for the chance to get away from the one he secretly called 'the creepy bug guy.' He gave his two teammates a sort of dreamy wave that seemed to say, _Well, see you around...probably in a few minutes_, and darted off in the direction of home.

As he ran, he went over lists in his mind and checked mental calendars. He couldn't come up with anything particularly important: no birthdays, no anniversaries, no appointments, not as far as he could recall. He consulted with Akamaru, but the dog couldn't think of anything, either. So, he concluded, there probably wasn't much Hana wanted him for except chores of some sort.

It wasn't much of a run before Kiba spotted the back door of his own home. He leapt over a potted plant and checked his fall by slamming an open-palmed hand against the back door with a loud _bang_. Akamaru grunted in protest as he was jerked around roughly inside Kiba's jacket. The Inuzuka boy stood panting for a few moments, trying to gather together enough common sense to slide the door open rather than push it. Akamaru hopped down to the ground and waited patiently. Finally, Kiba pushed back the door and stepped inside the cool semi-darkness.

For the first few seconds of his arrival, all Kiba did was stand in front of the open door blinking and getting accustomed to the new lighting. The house was darker than the outside world, and objects' colors were unnatural shades of themselves mixed with greens and browns. The whole thing looked like a photograph negative, where the colors were reversed. Nothing looked right until his eyes adjusted a few seconds later. "Hana!" he called. "Nee-san, are you here?"

"In the kitchen!" was Hana's reply. Kiba nodded, even though she wouldn't see him, and started off in the familiar direction. His eyes scanned the floor as he walked, and he noticed how he could see the patterns of wear. He bumped his elbow accidentally against a shelf, and a small jar started to topple, rattling with mysterious cargo. "Catch that!" Hana barked, poking her head around the corner. Kiba fumbled with the jar for a few seconds before he managed to get a good enough grip to place it back on the shelf safely. Akamaru heaved a sigh of relief.

"Good show," muttered Kuromaru as he trotted past Kiba. "You left the door open, by the way." Kiba groaned loudly.

"Can I please _anyone _today?" he asked, throwing his arms up in the air impatiently. "Is Mom here, nee-san? Maybe I can screw up in front of _her_ while I'm at it!"

"Calm down, Kiba," Hana soothed. She smiled at him, scrunching up the red Fang on her right cheek as she did so. "If you really think I'm mad at you, you can try placating me by running a few errands." She wiped her hands on a towel hanging by the sink and started walking towards her younger brother. She stopped, studied his face carefully, then grinned broadly. "What's her name?" she asked suddenly.

"Whose name?" Kiba was taken aback. Hana giggled.

"Kiba, don't try to lie about it," she told him gently, hopping onto the counter to sit. "I can see it in your eyes. You found a girl who's easy on your eyes. Come on, tell me—what's her name!"

"Toboe."

"Ooh! Pretty name for a pretty girl, I'm sure. What clan's she from?"

"Ookamizuka."

Hana's body gave a slight jerk, almost convulsive, and her hand knocked a bowl off the counter. Both siblings flinched. The bowl, luckily, was made of wood, so it clattered rather than shattered. Kiba reached down to pick it up, but Hana was faster. She swooped down from her perch and retrieved the bowl before Kiba could take a step in its direction. Her dark eyes looked out over his head. "Kuromaru, are you standing by the door for any particular reason?" she asked.

"Trying to decide whether I should go out or stay in," the burly black dog replied. He turned back. "But it seems to me a little sister-brother heart-to-heart is in order, so I think out would be best." He trotted out the door, and Hana closed it behind him, still holding onto the bowl.

"I'm sorry, Kiba," she said in an almost normal tone of voice. "I must have misheard you. Run that by me again. What clan...?"

"Ookamizuka," Kiba repeated nervously. "Why, is there something wrong, Hana?"

Hana sighed, tracing the red Fang marks on her cheeks absentmindedly. She set the bowl back onto the counter and sighed again. "You don't know," she murmured. "It's not my place to tell you, but I can say this much." She lifted her head and stared at Kiba with such fierce intensity that he fell back a few steps. "Stay far away from this Toboe and anyone from her clan. Ookamizuka are nothing but trouble. I'd hate for you to run into them..."

"What's wrong?" Kiba demanded. "You're dodging the question, nee-san!" He pounded a fist down on the table. "Tell me!"

"I _can't_." Hana shook her head innocently. "Maybe Mom will tell you later..." She gave her head a rapid shake. "But that aside, I called you up here to ask you to run a few quick errands for me." She handed him the list. "Tell Kuromaru he can come back in if he wants."

Kiba snatched the list from his older sister's hands and whirled around, marching his way back to the back door. He slid it open, stepped aside for his mother's ninken partner to enter, then stormed outside without so much as a backward glance. Akamaru trotted behind him, his black claws making gentle _click-click_ sounds on the floors as he walked. Kiba was furious. Stay away from Toboe? Why should he? What did Hana know, anyways? The questions thundered around in his head. He couldn't understand it.

But at the same time that he was angry, he was also confused. He pictured over and over again Hana's body doing that sudden twitch. He saw her steady hands, hands that had patched up nin-animals without the slightest stumble, convulse as though shocked and knock the bowl to the ground. Her warm, dark eyes were filled with fear and hatred combined, two things he had never seen in her eyes together—and rarely even by themselves for that matter. He remembered the way she had traced her Fangs almost nervously over and over again, and was reminded of Toboe's Fangs. There was something Hana knew that he didn't, and she wasn't telling him anything.

_What's our first stop?_ Akamaru asked the second Kiba's hands relaxed from their stiff fists. Kiba scanned the list without really seeing what it said four or five times before it finally clicked. He sighed and stuffed it into his pocket. _Kiba? Everything all right?_

"Not really," Kiba grunted. "She's never even _seen _Toboe, so how does she know if she's good or bad?"

_She didn't say anything bad about Toboe,_ Akamaru reminded him calmly. _She just said that Ookamizuka are trouble._ He shrugged. _Who knows?_

"Hana knows, and that's what's getting to me." Kiba glanced up at the darkening sky and scented the air. "Smells like we'll be getting some rain tonight," he said. He was ready for a new subject. His sister's unusual reaction and warning were starting to scare him a little. "And from the looks of things, it'll be a pretty good thunderstorm, too."

Akamaru followed his gaze upwards, nodding in agreement._ A good way to bring in summer, with a nice storm. It'll probably hit later this evening, which is good. _He prodded a wilted weed that was growing alongside their path. _We could use the rain. _

As if to assure the brown dog that rain was indeed on the way, the ground gave a slight tremble. The distant thunder rumbled across the boy's chest, making his sternum hum with the wild melody. It was then that Kiba noticed the absence of birdsong and the heavy, stifling stillness of the air. It was as if the whole village was holding its breath to wait for the storm to break.

The first thunderstorm of the summer season was prowling closer to Konoha like a massive tiger. It crept on heavy black paws, its steps shaking the ground with thunder. Its breath came in hard, excited pants, turning the leaves over so that they flashed their white undersides to the sky above. When it came close enough, the storm-tiger would leap into the darkened sky in a blaze of pure, furious energy and let out a thunderous, full-throated roar. Then the rain would start, softly at first, then pounding and drumming as the storm-tiger leapt and bellowed. Windows would be slammed and locked against it, and some younger children would shiver under their blankets and wait for the storm to pass.

No one could be sure how long it would take. A thunderstorm coming from even the darkest of skies might be furious and only live a few minutes. It could happen like that, or it could be violent for hours. The storm-tiger might find Konoha to be a wonderful plaything and stay all night, leaping, flashing, roaring, racing, battering. Whenever it tired of its rough games, the storm would rise to his thundery paws. With a backward glance over one shoulder, it would take its leave of the soaked village, purring at the fun it had made for itself. Its leaps through the sky would become less frequent and its footsteps would slowly fade away.

Kiba could hear its aroused panting and feel its strangely cool breath on his face as he walked. He felt a primeval instinct well up inside him: the fear of the storm. It wasn't that he was afraid; it was more like he was hyper-alert and a little nervous. Thunder buzzed through his body again, followed by another prefrontal wind. The Inuzuka youth glanced down at his friend, then nodded quickly and bolted off to his first destination. He wanted to have the errands run and be back inside his house before the storm broke.

;-:-;-:-;

When it was all said and done, the rain started just as Kiba was running for home, laden down with bags. It was the first few sprinkles of precipitation, light and scattered and warm. It dotted the dusty streets with spots of dark, first in small specks, then in large dabs. At Kiba's signal, Akamaru made a smooth, practiced leap into the boy's coat. Kiba held his arms behind him as he darted through the first few drops of rain. He narrowed his eyes as the rain started getting heavier. Before long, he was running home in literal curtains of pouring rain. It didn't take long for him to become completely soaked.

The raindrops drummed on roof shingles and trash can lids in a counterpoint to his pounding feet. Thunder snarled behind him, low and feral, as if warning him to beat the lightning that was sure to come soon. Kiba picked up the pace even more. "Don't worry, Akamaru, we'll get home soon enough," he murmured grimly. He pulled his head into his hood and to the side as he ran to avoid the splashy rain, which was probably why he didn't see the burly man crossing the street in front of him until it was too late.

"Hey! Don't you people watch where you're going?" a deep voice snapped. Kiba groaned softly, shaking his head dizzily. He had charged straight into the man's side headfirst, and the force of it knocked him back a few feet. He tripped over his own clumsy steps and fell to the ground. The bags that held the fruits of his errand-running sprayed their contents everywhere. He felt Akamaru cower down inside his jacket fearfully. "Is _everyone _in this village so inconsiderate?"

"Unari-kun, calm down," a gentler, female voice put in. "He's just a pup heading home in this terrible rain." Kiba felt a light hand on his shoulder. Still feeling a little woozy from the collision, he looked up into a familiar-looking face with soft, dark eyes and tanned skin. Familiar, he realized, because of the two cerulean Fangs that marked each cheek. He hadn't seen them at first. The saturated fur on the edge of his hood was plastered to his face, sticking to his cheeks in ratty strands and running into his eyes. "Are you all right?" the woman asked.

"I'm fine," he muttered. "Thanks though. I have to be heading home..."

"You spilled all your bags," the tall woman murmured sympathetically. Her voice carried a tint of unfamiliar accent that jangled through the Inuzuka boy's brain. He felt like he had heard it before, but his foggy mind couldn't place where. Kiba looked back and saw Hana's groceries, laundry, and other things scattered across the rain-soaked street. "Would you like some help?"

"Getsuei-chan, he said he's all right," the man, Unari, growled. Kiba noticed that he, too, spoke strangely. "Come on, we're wasting our time here, and the rest of the clan's waiting for us to get back." He studied Kiba carefully. "Tell me something, pup. Where can I find the leader of your village?" Kiba pointed the way to Hokage, then heaved himself to his feet. The woman, Getsuei, held out a hand to help him up, which he took gratefully. Unari nodded. "Thank you. Are you sure you don't need any help?" He glanced over at Kiba's now-soaked belongings. He scratched his cheek, and Kiba saw that he too was marked with blue Fangs. Now he knew where he had heard that accent! They were Ookamizuka!

"I'll be fine," Kiba told him. "I have to get home. My sister's probably worried sick about me by now." With a sigh, he crouched down and started gathering up his dripping bundles and stuffing them back into the bags. He heard a soft growl and turned to see a massive, black wolf literally towering over him. The beast had to be at least five feet at the shoulder, with pitch-black fur and glowing green eyes. In its jaws, which Kiba was sure could snap him right in half, it held a bag of groceries. Kiba gave a weak smile and took back the bag.

"Thank you, Kuromaru," Getsuei said, patting the wolf on its muscular shoulders fondly. Kuromaru turned to acknowledge the touch, licking the woman's hand. Another growl at Kiba's left revealed an equally huge white wolf with amber eyes, this one holding the laundry. Kiba took the bag back with a nod of thanks. Setting both bags down on the ground, he shook himself like a dog in hopes of scattering the worst of the rain from his hooded jacket. He heard Unari grumble and Getsuei laugh softly.

"Thanks for helping," he said, rising to his feet. "I should get going."

"Thank you for pointing us in the right direction," Getsuei told him, smiling sweetly. "Tell me, pup, what's your name? You look like you could be a good playmate for our daughter."

Over the insistent drumming of the rain, Kiba heard Akamaru give him a soft warning: _Be careful...they may not like you if you say you're Inuzuka, Kiba._

"It's not important right now," Kiba told the two, brushing it off in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. "If you're staying here for any amount of time, I'm sure our paths will cross again." He held up the wet bags. "I'd better get these home fast."

"Get running, pup," Unari muttered. "Kuromaru, let's go find out who's the head of this place." The black wolf nodded and fell in step beside the man. Getsuei and the white wolf hesitated for a moment.

"I hope we see you again, pup," she said. "Yuki, come along." The white wolf nodded and trotted beside the woman. Kiba gave 'Yuki' a quick look-over and saw that it was clearly a female wolf. He could see her milk-heavy belly and knew that she was still nursing a litter. As he watched them walk away, it dawned on him that if they set their minds to it, the two humans could have easily ridden on their wolf companions' backs.

Akamaru poked his head out and whimpered quietly. The small sound was almost lost in the furious roar of falling rain. _I don't like these people, Kiba,_ he whined. _They scare me a little, and I don't think they would have been so nice if you had told them your name. They give me a bad feeling...I hope they don't stay long._

Kiba sighed. He rested his chin on Akamaru's head, hoping to calm the pup down with his closeness. "Don't worry. They're gone now," he whispered soothingly. "Let's just head home for now, Akamaru." He shivered suddenly, and sneezed. "Man, I'm gonna have such a cold tomorrow from all this. This rain is freezing!" With that, he pushed himself up and started for home again, sticking close to the eaves of the buildings. It was harder to run that way, but it was warmer and somewhat drier.

;-:-;-:-;

"There you are!" Hana cried, racing to the door with a towel. "You were out for so long, I didn't know where you were!" She thrust the towel into his hands, seemingly ignoring the sopping wet bags. "Here, take this and dry off. I'll get you something hot to drink." She bent down to study Akamaru briefly. "Something for Akamaru, too."

"What do you want with these?" Kiba asked, holding up his dripping packages. Hana glanced over her shoulder at them, almost as if seeing them for the first time. She shrugged lightly and gave him the warm, loving smile that only older sisters can give.

"Just leave them there. I'll get them later." She whisked back around and headed into the kitchen. Kiba stood dumbstruck for a few minutes before he was struck by a draft from a half-open window. The cold shock made him realize he was soaking wet, and it didn't take long for him to strip out of his dripping gray jacket. Akamaru shook himself vigorously, then sneezed.

"Bless you," Kiba muttered, scrubbing his face dry with the towel. He looked up, his vision partially obscured by clumps of his drenched brown hair. He shook his head to scatter them from his eyes, then unstrapped his sandals and left them on the mat.

"Kiba, you're safe!" his mother's warm, comforting voice murmured. Inuzuka Tsume got down on one knee to give her son a warming hug. "I was ready to go out there into the rain myself and look for you with Kuromaru! Are you all right?" Her dark eyes flicked over every inch of her son's body as if she were trying to assure herself that he was, in fact, safe and sound. Her mouth was pulled to one side, and Kiba wondered if she would start tracing her Fangs like Hana had been doing.

"I'm fine, Mom," Kiba assured her, wondering why everyone was fussing over him like this. "Really. Just cold and wet."

"What happened to make you late like this?" Tsume asked.

"I...just running in the rain." Kiba decided at the last second not to tell her about his encounter with the two Ookamizuka or their wolf partners. Judging from Hana's reaction earlier that afternoon, he wasn't sure he wanted to see what his mother would do. "A little hard to do, you know." He rubbed his head as the most recent beat of his heart brought on a wonderful headache. "That, and I...I ran into a streetlight." Tsume gave him a smile that was, at best relieved, and wrapped him up in another warm hug.

"I'm glad you got back here safely," she told him. "Don't ever scare me like that again." She pulled back and rapped out an order in a commanding, yet motherly voice: "Now go put on dry clothes before you do anything else."

Kiba nodded and obediently set out for his room, Akamaru padding behind him. The Inuzuka boy was shivering, and he didn't hesitate to strip off his doused, clinging clothing and swap it out for warmer, drier stuff. Hana appeared soon after and handed him some soup, then ordered him into bed. Wrapped up in a fluffy blanket with a cup of hot soup in his hands, Kiba turned to Akamaru. "Why were they all fussing over me like that?" he asked. "I mean"—he flicked his head towards his window just as a brilliant bolt of blue lightning blazed across the sky, which was followed a heartbeat later by an explosion of thunder—"there was hardly any thunder or lightning while I was out there. I know I was a little late, but it's not like we just moved to Konoha. I know my way around here." He sighed and took a sip of soup. "Don't they know that?"

_Kiba, remember what Hana did when you said you had met one of the Ookamizuka clan?_ Akamaru asked. Kiba nodded. _Well, suppose she told Tsume-san, and I'm sure you can well imagine __**her **__reaction._ Kiba nodded again. _They started to get worried because they didn't know if an Ookamizuka had attacked you or robbed you. Whatever it is, they don't trust the Ookamizuka clan, and they didn't want you out there late in the evening, in the rain, to face up to one of them._

"But we _did_," Kiba reminded him, feeling utterly confused. "And not just one, but two. Remember? Unari and Getsuei. They _had_ to be Ookamizuka—they had the wolves and the Fangs."

_Your mother and sister don't know that._ Akamaru sneezed, then yawned. _I'm sure it will look better in the morning._ With that, he turned around three times and collapsed beside Kiba on the bed. Kiba took a huge gulp of soup, forgetting how hot it was, and burned his mouth. He gulped it down fast, his eyes starting to water, and placed the empty cup on his nightstand. Akamaru was right. Things always looked better in the morning. He snuggled down under the covers, cradling Akamaru close to his chest. Within minutes, he was snoring, the sound of the raindrops having lulled him to sleep with their constant, unchanging rhythm.

**Wow, long chapter. O.O (blinks) Sorry about that, but I was just having so much fun writing. I forgot to break it off, and before long, it got to the point where I couldn't really do that. **

**By the way, for those who are reading this because of my last Naruto story, it doesn't take place right after The Grinning Fox (even though the timing works out). It's actually been a little over two years since the first story, and this one should make a little more sense than the first.**


	3. The Wolf Camp

_Toboe's POV_

The rain pelted the earth from the black skies above, kicking up drops of muddy earth and water. A black nose, which had recently been thrust up under the overhanging leaf of a hosta plant, was swiftly withdrawn with a snort and a shake. The nose's owner glanced up at the silky sky and snorted again as another raindrop plinked between two dark eyes. _Damn the rain,_ the wolf thought bitterly. _Damn the rain for hiding the Moon. Waxing gibbous__, and it's been __**ages**__ since we've seen a good one of those!_

The wolf in question was a leggy beast with reddish brown fur and black eyes. Twin stripes graced her tawny-furred cheeks, standing out in blazes of deep blue. The she-wolf shook herself irritably, fluffing out her thick pelt, and turned to the white wolf beside her. _There's nothing out here,_ the other wolf told her bluntly. _Let's head back in for the night._

The red wolf sighed, nodding. There was a distinctive _pop_ sound, and when the smoke cleared, the form of Ookamizuka Toboe could be seen rising from all fours. The girl sighed. "I wish it would clear up soon, Shiromaru," she muttered with another exasperated look up at the sky. "I hate going so long without seeing the Moon...it's not good."

_You're not the only one, Toboe,_ Shiromaru assured her grimly. He trotted down the wooded, muddy slope in the direction of the Ookamizuka camp. Toboe followed after him silently. _Believe me when I tell you that I miss it just as much as you do...maybe even more._

Toboe nodded, grasping a low tree limb and sliding down the slope behind her partner. Shiromaru's white pelt had been washed clean from the usual travel-dust when the rain had first started, but trudging through the mud in search of something exciting had stained him darker than before. He looked like her father's partner Kuromaru in the near-total darkness. She would have laughed, but controlled herself. Shiromaru was probably not in the best of moods right now. It made Toboe anxious to go days without seeing the calm, silver Moon; it made Shiromaru dangerous sometimes.

The valley in which her clan was now camped had been one of Toboe's own finding. She and Shiromaru, full of youthful energy, had bounded ahead of the rest of their group. They had skipped from rock to rock across laughing streams, slid between bushes and trees with hardly a sound, and finally stumbled upon the small valley—literally. Toboe had tripped over a gnarled tree root sticking a good foot out of the ground and had flown through the brush to land facedown in the clearing. Shiromaru ran off to tell of the lucky find while Toboe dusted herself off gingerly. As she thought about it, the girl rubbed a small bandage on her left cheek tenderly. Her face, scratched by the fall, still stung a little bit.

The camp was dark when they entered it, and silent save for a few murmurs and snores. Toboe didn't need to glance up at the dark sky to see an invisible Moon to know it was nearing midnight. She slipped quietly between the rows of sturdy canvas tents. The tents of the Ookamizuka clan were made to withstand harsh weather. They were made of thick, rugged canvas and staked down to the ground with the strongest ropes that could be traded for. They had but one flaw: they were bottomless. They were a shelter against wind-blown rain, but if that rain chose not to be absorbed by the ground, it slipped under the tent walls and soaked the mats and blankets of those inside the tent.

Finally, Toboe came upon a fairly large tent. A golden light glowed from the inside, and the silhouette of a young woman was thrown against the tent. Toboe paused at the flap of the door to shake herself thoroughly and strip off her muddy boots. Shiromaru scrubbed his paws on a rock near the door, leaving streaks of dark mud behind. The Ookamizuka girl glanced down at her partner before sliding into the tent.

While the outside of the tent was constructed of plain tan canvas, the _inside _of the tent was decorated with painted, stylized animals. There were blue-painted wolves drawn in flowing, smooth lines that were hunting, howling, running, fighting, mating, playing. They chased after red and yellow caribou with massive antlers and unnaturally long legs. Between the animals were swirls, lines, and all manner of geometric shapes. They all came together to tell stories of hunts and the earliest moments of a pack, both personal and public.

Two pallets made of freshly-cut tree limbs sat on either side of the tent, about a foot from the nearest wall. A travoise pack lay at the foot of each bed, with a smaller canvas bag resting on top of it. The bed on the right was neatly made up with a blanket that had lost most of its bright colors, but the pattern was still visible. The bed on the left held a young woman reading a book while she leaned up against a tree stump. A golden-yellow wolf lay stretched out beside her, his eyes closed, his paws and nose twitching in sleep. Had he been standing up, it would have become quickly apparent that he was nearly double Shiromaru's size

The young woman reading glanced up at Toboe as she entered the tent with Shiromaru. She, too, was marked by Ookamizuka Fangs. Her skin was dark like Toboe's, as were her eyes. Her hair carried a tinge of rust-red to it, and in the lamplight, streaks of blonde could be seen. "Find anything fun outside, Toboe-chan?" she asked mildly.

"Nah," Toboe replied, unzipping the front of her vest and dropping it on the floor beside the unoccupied bed. She licked a raindrop that was running down her face, tasting a bit of watered-down sweat in it. "Not really."

"Hm," was all the young woman said as she returned to her book. Toboe unzipped her shorts and tossed them atop her vest. Wearing only a strip of cloth across her chest and a pair of underwear, she slid into her bed and snuggled down under the warm, dry blanket. Like the rest of her clan, Toboe didn't see the need for nightclothes (after all, without them, it was one less thing you had to carry around with you). Shiromaru flopped down beside her. "Mother and Father back yet?"

"Nope," Toboe murmured. "How long you been reading for, nee-san?"

"Since you left," was the reply. Toboe's sister looked up, smiling. "Why? Do you want me to turn off the light so you can sleep?"

"I can sleep with it on if you're too caught up in reading. I'm just worried about what Father would say if he saw you up so late in strange territory."

The Ookamizuka woman laughed softly. " 'Fumoto-chan, we could very well be in enemy territory!' " she mimicked as she blew out the lamp. " 'If you intend to lead the pack one day, you must be prepared to tackle anything, and the mind and body cannot function without rest.' "

Toboe snickered. "So get to sleep already, Fumoto-Alpha," she teased. Ookamizuka Fumoto reached across and gave her younger sister a playful slap across the back of the head. "I guess they'll wait until tomorrow morning to tell us what they found."

"Sounds reasonable to me," Fumoto muttered. "Well, good night, nee-chan. Sleep well. Dance among the auroras until they vanish with the sun."

"Race through the stars until morning steals them away," Toboe returned. The greetings she and her sister used were old-fashioned at best, but they were traditional, and quite frankly, she thought they were beautiful. She wriggled down further under the covers, pressing her cool, wet hair against her face. Her pillow and blankets smelled of wolf, a scent she had come to associate with security and love. She reached out and wrapped her fingers deep in Shiromaru's snowy white ruff. With a final, contented sigh, she dropped into sleep.

;-:-;-:-;

"Hey! Sleepyhead! Wake up, already!"

"Don't have a caribou, aight?"

Toboe sat up, blinking at the soft, golden morning light. The sun had risen recently, she knew, and she could smell the warm wetness of last night's rain. Fumoto was crouched beside her pallet, already fully dressed. She wore almost the same clothes as Toboe did, only with a long-sleeved white shirt under her red vest that hid her flat stomach. Her shorts were shorter than Toboe's (which ended at the knees), ending about mid-thigh. Her hair was pulled back in a long, neat braid. An intricately carved comb sat atop her braid, the tines dug into her unplaited hair. Carved from the fallen antler of a tiny mountain deer, it showed two running wolves, and was Fumoto's most prized possession. She had polished it to a milky, opalescent finish from years of exposure to hand and hair oils.

"Come _on_, Toboe!" Fumoto demanded. "You'd sleep all day if I wasn't here, wouldn't you?" She nipped her little sister's bare shoulder affectionately and pushed herself up. "Father called the clan together a few minutes ago, and he won't start until you're there!"

Toboe scrambled to pull dry clothes from her bag (the ones she had worn last night hadn't had a chance to dry, having spent the night huddled on the ground) and drag a bone-carved comb through her dark hair. After pulling it back into the familiar ponytail, she selected two brown-and-cream-banded hawk feathers and stuck them under the tieback. Fumoto stood at the door of the tent, watching impassively. As soon as Toboe was dressed and ready, she ducked out with Kiiromaru behind her. Toboe glanced at Shiromaru, who was trying desperately to scrub the caked, dried mud from his legs with his muzzle, and followed her sister.

The rest of the clan had gathered already. Some where standing with folded arms and impatient looks, while others stood calmly and patiently. Toboe pushed her way through the crowd after her sister. Fumoto stopped at the front of the assembly. Toboe stepped in front of her and sat cross-legged on the ground, the proper position for a pup.

The alphas of the Ookamizuka clan stood on a massive gray rock. Ookamizuka Unari was a huge man, with a head of thinning black hair and work-hardened muscles. Black hair lay thickly on his arms and legs. He had a round, sort of heavy-looking face, with a strong jaw, large nose, and bushy eyebrows. It all combined to give him a sort of feral appearance. The joke among the clan was that all of Unari's hair had deserted his head to cover other parts of his body, and before long, he would be as hairy and black as his partner Kuromaru.

Standing beside him was his wife Getsuei. Getsuei had joined Unari's clan from a different one, and as a result, she looked very different. Unari's body was stocky and thick, covered in hair to insulate against the chilly north. Getsuei was from a southern clan, and was lean and light as a feather. Her face was narrow and oval-shaped. Her nose was small, with a slope as graceful as that of her jawline. She rested a hand on the thick white pelt of her partner Yuki.

It was from these two contrasting figures that Toboe and Fumoto pulled their looks (and in reality, Toboe was often thought of as being the child of her father's younger sister). Toboe was an odd mix of her father and mother's bodies, with her father's stocky torso and mother's long arms and legs. Fumoto's growth, however, seemed to have concentrated on her mother's long body and father's sturdy legs. Fumoto's face was like that of her mother's; Toboe had inherited her father's round face. If the four stood side-by-side, one could easily pick out shared features and shapes.

"Listen, Moonchildren!" Unari barked in his gruff, deep voice. Toboe glanced back and up at Fumoto, wiggling her eyebrows emphatically. The two sisters weren't the only ones who liked using old-fashioned speech. "Last night, we traveled a short run to Fire Country's own Hidden Village, the Hidden Leaf Village!"

Murmurs broke out as clan members turned to their neighbors. Toboe understood their uneasiness. The Ookamizuka normally travelled in secrecy, like their wolf friends. The idea that they had chosen to set up camp a run away from a village (which translated to maybe a twenty-minute run, or a few miles; a "short" run was even less) was something that rarely happened. Unari raised a hand up in the air, and the gathered clan fell silent.

"We spoke to the village leader, the one they call 'Hokage,'" he continued. "He decreed that in three days' time, we would be welcomed in to celebrate and trade our goods among the people of the village." He looked down. "Until that time arrives, we should prepare our finest wares and prepare ourselves. Fumoto"—Fumoto looked up expectantly—"I place you in charge of assembling trades. Toboe"—Toboe jumped, curious to know what he could possibly want a pup like her to do—"you will assist your sister."

Fumoto gave her little sister a gentle, congratulatory punch on the shoulder. Unari continued doling out duties for the Betas and Delta to carry out, but Toboe hardly heard him. _She _was going to help assemble trades? _She_ was going to have some say? Unheard of! She was just a pup! But the gentle look in her father's dark eyes told her he was willing to give her a chance to prove her worth. She grinned up at him. _I'll do my best,_ she thought determinedly.

;-:-;-:-;

It wasn't long after the meeting ended that Toboe and Fumoto slipped off to sort through their trading items. The two girls sat cross legged across from each other, holding up and appraising carvings, beads, feathers, and pelts. "I dunno...do you think they'll want any of this?" Toboe asked, thinking back to the Inuzuka boy she had met the previous day. "This doesn't seem like the kind of stuff they would want."

"What makes you say that?" Fumoto raised a thin eyebrow curiously.

"I met one from the village yesterday, and he seemed a little more...well, advanced than this." She held up a talisman necklace with beads carved from deer hooves. Fumoto scoffed.

"Nee-chan, there are things you have to learn if you ever want to rise through the ranks in our clan," she said, and took the necklace. "Look at this workmanship. It's been carved with every symbol we know to protect children—even the unborn ones."

"Exactly. I don't think they believe in this kind of stuff."

Fumoto laughed. "It doesn't matter. Even if it seems like the entire village is beyond superstition, there's always going to be someone who still believes in protector talismans like this one." She sighed seriously. "Look, if you want to, you're more than welcome to run off and play, Toboe-chan. Father doesn't care if you help or not. If you want to scamper up to the village and look for a playmate, then go right ahead."

She was being completely serious, and Toboe was tempted by her offer. Besides, if she did find someone from the village (_Maybe Kiba,_ she thought), she could gather information about what they would want to trade for. It actually seemed like a good idea. "They won't care if you go," Fumoto murmured, her gaze fixed on a rich, red-dyed walking staff. "You're a pup, so you're not expected to do any real work."

"I'm going to find out what they would want to trade for," Toboe told her. "If anyone asks, that's what I went to do. I'm still helping, but in a different way." Fumoto looked at her, smiling as if to say, _Go for it!_ Toboe nodded and darted back up the slope, Shiromaru striding behind her.

**A few translations for those who are curious:**

**Getsuei****—moon**

**Unari****—growl**

**Kuro****—black**

**Yuki****—snow**

**Shiro****—white**

**Kiiro****—yellow**

**I am the daughter of a meteorologist, which explains why in a lot of my stories, there is a lot of emphasis on the weather. For future reference (as well as so you don't have to look up all the specifics), I will provide for you a list of cloud names and such. Mmkay?**

**Cirrus****—"feather" clouds; these are the ones that look, well, like down feathers. They are some of the highest cloud formations, about five or six miles up. Also, they are mde of ice crystals, which also attributes to their wispy looks.**

**Cirrostratus****—"tangled web" clouds; as the name suggests, they are similar to cirrus clouds and hang around at a similar altitude (about 5 ½ miles). They look like thin strands of spider web and can cause a "halo" to form around the sun.**

**Cirrocumulus****—"mackerel" clouds; cirrocumuli are another brand of cirrus clouds. They appear in sort of **_**lines**_** across the sky, if that makes sense to you. If not, you can always look for pictures. About 4 miles up.**

**Altocumulus****—"sheep" clouds; altocumuli clouds are similar to cirrocumuli in that they form "lines". However, altocumulus lines are broken up into fluffy bunches. They chill out somewhere between 3 and 4 miles up.**

**Altostratus****—"curtain" clouds; these clouds are thin, and cover everything. When someone says the day is "overcast", there's probably a lot of these around. Usually, you can see a bright spot where the sun or moon is. About 3 miles up.**

**Stratocumulus****—"twist" clouds; these clouds are dark but bring no rain. They hang in lines, in fluffy bunches, much like altocumulus. They're very low, being about a mile up from the ground.**

**Cumulus****—"wool pack" clouds (I call them "lumpy icing" clouds, personally); these're the big boys. They're some of the bigger clouds you'll see. They heap up in big, bubbly masses, sometimes growing pretty tall. Sometimes they get dark, other times they'll be a lovely glowing white.**

**Cumulonimbus****—"anvil" clouds; these are the clouds that bring thunderstorms. They're called "anvil" clouds because of their shape. A full-fledged cumulonimbus is broad at the bottom, then climbs upward in a pillar, which then flattens out again at the top. The top may look wispy like a cirrus cloud, but this is misleading. It's no cirrus. These are pretty low-hanging clouds.**

**Nimbus****—"over all"; these are rain clouds, pure and simple. They're very thick and very dark, and small pieces floating on their own are known as "scud." That's a fun word to break out in casual conversation, actually. "That reminds me of a scud I once saw." People will look at you like you just spoke in tongues. I've done this before (nerdish pride). It's a lot of fun.**


	4. Ramen and Chunin HQ

_Kiba's POV_

"Akamaru! What's gotten into you? Get back here!"

_Don't you smell it, Kiba? There are wolves here!_

The puppy skidded to a halt, whining and pacing nervously. His tail shot between his legs as if seeking shelter under his belly. Kiba knelt down beside him, and the dog leapt into his jacket in a streak of tawny-white. "Akamaru, it's all right," he murmured soothingly. "I won't let anything happen to you, I promise." He lifted his head and scented the air. He could smell the wolf-scent that worried Akamaru...as well as the scent of Toboe. She was here?

"Howoo!" The eerie greeting came from behind him. Kiba whirled around to see Toboe perched on the overhanging bough of a tree, Shiromaru seated uncomfortably beside her. The Ookamizuka girl brushed a few strands of hair out of her eyes and grinned down at him. "Good morning, Kiba!"

"H-hey, Toboe!" Kiba returned, a little startled by her sudden appearance. Had she been following him? "I wasn't expecting to see you here." He grinned mischievously. "I didn't know wolves could climb trees."

Toboe hopped down, making a feather-light landing. Shiromaru stumbled down after her. "They can't, really," she replied. "I helped him up there." She stood up. "I don't have anything to really do today, so I was wondering if you could show me around."

"Show you around?" Kiba echoed blankly. Toboe laughed.

"I know, I know, it sounds a little weird, but you have to understand, I've never lived in the same place for more than a few days at a time." Toboe sighed. "I don't understand how a village works or anything like that. My whole life is just travel and trade."

Kiba smiled. "Well, we can start by getting food. Have you had breakfast yet?" The girl shook her head. "Good. Me neither." He looked around. "The best place I can think of is the Ramen Bar...you ever had ramen before?"

"Yeah..." She said it in a tone of voice that suggested the words, _What do you think I am, a rock?_

"But you've never had ramen from Konoha's Ramen Bar, now have you?" he asked with a cocky grin. Toboe smiled and shook her head. Kiba wiggled a finger as if scolding her. "Then you've never had real ramen! Come on, my treat!"

_Kiba, does she really have to bring her wolf along with her?_ Akamaru asked nervously. _I'm fine with Toboe, but not Shiromaru._ He whined. _How can you be sure he won't try to attack me? He's a wolf and I'm a dog. The two don't mix well at all._

"Toboe wouldn't let him," Kiba murmured so the girl wouldn't hear. "He's as much a part of her as you are of me. She understands human-animal partnerships—she's a part of one!"

"What's wrong?" Toboe asked, noticing his hesitation. She scooped Shiromaru up in her arms and held him with one hand under his haunches. The white wolf squirmed around to get comfortable in her grasp, and Kiba wondered just how heavy he was. Toboe gave Akamaru a curious look. "Is everything all right?"

"He's...a little nervous around Shiromaru," Kiba admitted. "I've been telling him that neither of us will let anything bad happen to him, but...he keeps going on about how wolves and dogs don't get along, says they're too different." He contemplated telling her about his sister's unusual reaction to the Ookamizuka clan's arrival, but decided against it. It may be an Inuzuka thing, in which case she wouldn't understand it.

Toboe smiled gently and set Shiromaru back down on the ground. She reached over and gave Akamaru a light scratch behind the ears. Kiba felt the dog's tail wag against his belly. "Shiromaru loves to be scratched here," she told him. "It looks like you do, too." With that, she bent down and scratched Shiromaru in the same spot. The young wolf rolled over onto his back and kicked his legs in the air happily. Kiba laughed, as did Toboe. "Dogs and wolves aren't so different after all." She looked up at Akamaru. "Shiromaru won't do anything I don't want him to...well, except come to bed dripping wet. But that aside, if I don't want him to hurt you, then he won't, aight?"

"Told you," Kiba murmured, ruffling Akamaru's ears affectionately.

_I guess you're right,_ Akamaru muttered. _But I can't put it all behind me. Toboe won't hurt us, but who's to say the rest of her clan wouldn't?_

"Stop worrying so much, will you?" Kiba sighed. "We should probably head over now. Come on, it's this way." He started in the direction of the Ramen Bar. Toboe stopped him.

"Would Akamaru feel safer if I held onto Shiromaru?" she asked.

_Yes,_ the pup barked. Kiba nodded and so did the Ookamizuka girl. She lifted the white animal easily, one hand under his bent front legs, the other supporting his back legs. Shiromaru was a little shorter than one of Hana's Haimaru Sankyodai, and for a while it looked as though Toboe would have a hard time carrying him. But Shiromaru wriggled around until Toboe's grasp seemed a little more natural and the girl started to walk. She strode up alongside Kiba and flashed him a quick grin.

"Isn't he heavy?" Kiba asked, a little amazed. Toboe shook her head, paused, then shook it again.

"Not to me, at least," she replied. "Although, I've carried him like this before now." She laughed. "I used to carry him around everywhere with me when I was starting to walk. You know, the way a little kid holds their pet..." She demonstrated by releasing Shiromaru's hindquarters and half-carrying him, half-dragging him. Shiromaru's long legs stretched downwards, toes spread wide. The wolf grumbled in protest, and Kiba thought he could understand the words _hurts_ and _stop_, but Wolf was too thick and guttural for him to catch every word. Toboe readjusted her grip on the wolf. "I used to tote him around like a favorite toy everywhere I went."

Kiba laughed. "How long have the two of you been together?" he asked. Toboe smiled.

"Since birth," she told him. Kiba stopped, startled.

"Since birth?" he echoed. Toboe nodded. "But...I thought a wolf as old as him would have reached its full size by now."

"Are you kidding me? He's a runt compared to the rest of the pack." He noticed how she didn't say _clan_. Could it be that there was a human _clan _and a wolf _pack _living and working together, and that Toboe was referencing the wolves? "You should see Kuromaru or Yuki. Hah! Even Kiiromaru's big compared to my little Shiromaru-pup."

The words Kuromaru and Yuki made him wonder if they could be the same wolves he had encountered the previous night. They had been huge, higher than he himself was. How did ordinary wolves get to be so big? He wondered about the clan's name. _When they say 'Ookamizuka', does that mean that the wolves they travel with are not ordinary wolves, but ookami—god-wolves? _he wondered. Akamaru must have sensed his friend's thought, for he shuddered.

The two chatted amiably enough for the rest of the walk. Toboe asked about trading, mostly: what would they trade for, what did they have to trade, when and where did they plan on trading. Kiba wondered just how much of this girl's life revolved around her clan's nomadic ways. When they finally stopped at the Ramen Bar and sat down, it was around lunch time.

"I'm surprised to see you here, Kiba," the young woman working there said sweetly. "I would have thought your sensei would have you working like a dog—pun not intended." Regardless, Toboe roared with laughter. "And who's your friend?"

"Toboe," the girl replied with a nod. "Ookamizuka Toboe."

"Oh, so you're part of the wanderers?" Toboe nodded. "How wonderful." She glanced at Shiromaru. Toboe rested a hand on the flank of the wolf seated on the stool next to her. Kiba didn't need to be an expert on wolves (he was already close to being one on dogs) to know that Shiromaru was not comfortable in the noisy, bouillon-scented restaurant. His ears were pressed flat against his skull, his eyes narrowed. His tail was drawn stiffly up against his belly. The white fur on his shoulders was rising uneasily, which was probably one of the reasons Toboe had put her hand over it.

"His name is Shiromaru." Toboe also did not look comfortable. Her lips were pressed together in a thin line, and she would not make eye contact with anyone but Kiba or the wolf for very long. Kiba guessed that she shared a very close bond with Shiromaru, and whatever he felt, she felt too. _Babies cry in sympathy,_ he thought, remembering what his mother had told him once. She said that if babies are kept in the same room and one starts to cry, the others cry as well, even if there is nothing wrong with them. The waitress nodded and slid two steaming bowls of ramen down the bar. Toboe grabbed a plate and dished some out for Shiromaru.

"You said you thought I'd be working," Kiba said at length. "Why?"

The young woman turned and smiled. "Because every genin and chunin and jonin are helping prepare for the Ookamizuka clan to come in. Apparently, there's going to be a huge celebration and all that. You know, dancing, food, music, good times." She grinned. "Better get a move on if you don't want to work."

Kiba had sat there with his chopsticks loaded with noodles. Now they were strangely light. He looked down to see that they were empty, and Akamaru was licking his lips contentedly.

_Good ramen,_ the dog commented. Kiba let out a short, irritated growl.

"If you wanted it, you could have gotten your own bowl!"

_Oh, but it's so much easier to take it from you, Kiba. Besides, we always share our food. What's different now?_ He panted with amusement. _It's because Toboe is here, isn't it? You don't want me acting up, do you?_

There was a grating, sliding sound as Shiromaru pushed a small bowl half-full of noodles over the counter towards Akamaru with his nose. "You can finish ours if you want to, Akamaru," Toboe murmured. She sighed, a hunted look in her dark eyes. Akamaru studied the offering tentatively before hopping onto the counter to slurp them down. The waitress gave a sharp scold and made shooing motions. Kiba grabbed the pup and plunked him down on the stool beside him. Akamaru put his front paws on the bar and continued to eat as though nothing had happened.

"Everything all right, Toboe-chan?" Kiba asked around a mouthful of hot noodles. Toboe looked up at the affectionate name, and for a moment, the worried look cleared from her face. Then a pot slammed in the kitchen. She and Shiromaru flinched at the same time, and both wore a grimace of fear. The lean girl pulled her tense fists up close to her mouth, almost as though she were cowering, and it seemed to Kiba that she was shivering slightly.

"I'm...gonna go take a walk," she muttered. "I won't go far, I promise."

Kiba slurped the end of his last noodle up ino his mouth and turned to Akamaru. The dog nodded. "Wait up. I'll come with you. I'm done." He dropped his tab on the bar and hopped off the stool. Akamaru leapt down onto his head, barking in agreement. Toboe turned and smiled gratefully.

"She said something about work," the girl murmured as they walked away from the Ramen Bar. Kiba nodded. The further away from the noisy restaurant, the more she and her wolf partner relaxed. "Are you going to stick around and find out?"

"Hell no," Kiba shot back. Toboe looked a little surprised. "Sorry," he apologized. "I mean, heck no."

"You don't have to worry about swearing around me," Toboe assured him. "I swear all the time." She had turned to look at him as she walked, and as a result, walked straight into a streetlight post. "Ow! Dammit!" she grunted as she rubbed the side of her head. Kiba started to laugh. "See...I told you!"

"I think it's time I showed you a little secret," he told her. "And unless I'm wrong, you'll have a chance to meet a lot of cool people." Toboe looked excited. "Follow me."

;-:-;-:-;

"How much further is it?" Toboe queried as she trudged up the slope of a hill behind Kiba. The Inuzuka boy smiled.

"Not much further now."

The two of them were walking through a fairly dense part of the woods, climbing up a steep hill. Maybe it was because he was there with a good friend, but it seemed to him that the leaves had never looked greener or smelled leafier. Sunlight speckled the ground in pools of gold. The leaf-litter and loam they touched turned warm, and if someone sat one hand in the light and the other in the shadows, they would be pleasantly surprised by the two dissimilar feelings. The sky was nearly invisible, but the last time they had seen it, it had been clear and bright blue. Kiba leaned against a small tree to rest. Toboe stepped up behind him. She didn't look the least bit tired, even though she had made the climb while carrying the white wolf.

"Is this it?" she asked, sounding a little skeptical. Kiba shook his head.

"No. We still have a bit more to climb," he told her. Toboe groaned impatiently. "Don't worry. It'll be worth it, believe me." The Ookamizuka girl sighed. "Just give me a few minutes to think about where we are. It's been a while since I've had enough time to come up here."

"Don't tell me we're lost!" Toboe cried. Akamaru hopped down and started to sniff around.

_They came this way, Kiba,_ he barked. _I can smell the Boy Who Keeps The Fleas Away and the Girl With White Eyes._ Kiba noticed how the pup used his old names for the two youth. He didn't know why Akamaru would do that.

_Shino and Hinata-chan,_ Kiba thought. _So we are on the right track after all._ He pushed himself away from the tree, nodding. "All right. I'm good. Let's get a move on."

Toboe cheered. "Finally! Now tell me something, Kiba-kun: Where exactly are we going? And don't just tell me it's a secret, because I know there's more to it than that, aight? Who am I going to meet? Are they friends of yours? Family?" When she said the last word, a hesitant look crossed her face.

"I'll tell you when we get there," was all Kiba said. "Come on, Toboe-chan. It's not much further now."

Shiromaru barked a few times, a devilish grin crossing his face. Toboe laughed. "Shiromaru says you're as lost as a wandering pup," she said. Kiba hesitated. "Oh, Shiromaru, you're so mean, but you might be right."

"We're not lost," Kiba growled, and Toboe stopped laughing.

"I'm sorry, Kiba-kun...I didn't mean to be that way." Kiba sighed, nodding. He felt bad for letting his temper slip with the girl.

"It's all right," he mumbled awkwardly. "We really are almost there. Maybe a few minutes." He started off, flicking his hand for her to follow. She did, and the two of them walked side-by-side this time.

It wasn't much later before the two of them came to a thinning in the trees. Kiba could hear the scattered murmured of familiar voices, but they were too low to put to names. He beckoned to Toboe and stepped into the clearing. "Hey guys!" he said amiably, waving a hand.

The forest cleared to reveal a playground of medium size. It had every "traditional" piece of equipment: three swings, a playhouse with a big and small slide, a fairly large jungle-gym in the shape of a dome, a carousel that could be spun to give those on board a wild ride, monkey bars, two teeter-totters, a sandbox. The swings were on the left side, two regular swings with a baby swing in the middle. The swingset was connected to the playhouse, which also had numerous crazy ladders hanging off of it, as well as a metal pole you were supposed to slide down. Across from the swingset-playhouse was the jungle-gym, and flanking it were the carousel and monkey bars shaped in a circle. The sandbox sat in front of the jungle-gym, close to the center, with the teeter-totters next to it. The ground was covered in a mixture of woodchips and bits of rubber—and with yellow-white sand near the sandbox.

Most of the pieces of equipment had seen better days. The paint on the crazy ladders was chipped in some places and worn away in spots where hands frequented. The swings were full of hairline cracks, one or two of which were almost big enough to snag a person's shorts if they sat on them the wrong way. One of the jungle-gym's curved bars bore a mysterious dent about an inch deep; no one could figure out how or when it had happened. The teeter-totters' wooden seats had not been protected properly (which meant that the wood was a dark and dirty-looking shade of brown), their handlebars' paint was worn away, and their joints creaked like the door of a haunted house. The sandbox was really the only thing that didn't need repairs. Its wood gleamed with a finish that was only months old. However, no one had bothered to cover it before last night's rain, and as a result, the sand was littered with pockmarks and craters. A puddle of water sat in an abandoned bucket.

But Kiba was used to the look of the playground. He had spent many a day here, both in the past and present. Toboe stepped up beside him, her eyes wide as she took in the sights. "Toboe-chan, these are the rest of the chunin...well, at least, the ones I've spent time with." Graduates of the ninja academy were perched all over the playground equipment. It looked so strange, to see half-grown youth hanging around a child's playground, but to Kiba it was nothing out of the ordinary. "Welcome to Chunin Headquarters."

Toboe nodded. "So...these are the people you wanted me to meet?" she asked. Kiba nodded.

"All right, we'll work our way around." He took her hand and pointed to the swings. "On the left swing is Hyuuga Neji. He's on the team with"—he pointed to a girl seated on the playhouse—"TenTen and"—he pointed to the lanky boy beside her—"Rock Lee."

"Hi!" Toboe said cheerily, waving. Neji nodded. TenTen giggled and returned the greeting. Lee smiled and nodded.

"Sitting behind them—the boy with the chips—is Akimichi Choji. He's on the team with Yamanaka Ino"—he indicated a blonde girl about to go down the slide; at the sound of her name, she turned and waved—"and Nara Shikamaru." It took him a while to find Shikamaru. The lazy boy was leaned against a tree on the other side of the playground, staring up at the sky. Only his ponytail could be seen.

"What'cha doing?" Toboe asked him. Shikamaru sighed.

"Watching the clouds go by," he replied. Toboe followed his gaze upwards.

"Are we going to get any rain?" Shikamaru studied the clouds a little more closely, then shrugged.

"It's entirely possible, but it wouldn't be anything violent like last night."

Kiba nodded and pointed out the blonde boy sitting on the other adult swing. "That boy there is Uzumaki Naruto. He's on the team with Haruno Sakura"—he showed her the pink-haired girl sitting atop the monkey bars—"and Uchiha Sasuke and Hikitsuko." Sasuke was perched calmly at the top of the jungle-gym, a large, sleek fox at his side. "A word of warning: Sasuke has the Sharingan eyes, meaning he can copy any kind of special jutsu you use." Toboe looked confused. "And don't think he won't do it, too! He's stolen one of mine."

"In my own defense, I altered that one," Sasuke said in a bored-sounding voice. He had raised a hand as though trying to placate Kiba. He rolled his eyes and stroked Hikitsuko. Kiba snarled angrily.

"Oh, just because you burned yourself, it's a completely different jutsu, is it?" the Inuzuka boy returned. Sasuke sighed.

"Yes, now give it a rest, will you?" he asked. Surprisingly, Kiba complied quickly and started on another group of three. They were off to the side, as though there were a fence between them and the other chunin.

"Over there, we have three from the Sand Village. The tall girl standing there is—"

Toboe cut him off with a giddy laugh and darted towards the tall blonde. "Temari-chan!" she cried, flinging her arms around the girl's waist. Temari stumbled back in surprise, her eyes wide. She looked from Toboe to Shiromaru, then burst out laughing and hugged the Ookamizuka girl back.

"Toboe-chan?" Toboe looked up and nodded rapidly. Temari laughed again. "It's been forever! I didn't think I'd ever see you again!"

Kiba could only watch as Toboe moved away from Temari to tackle her black-clad brother. "And Kankuro-kun! You're here too?"

Kankuro laughed. "You grew, Toboe!" he remarked, ruffling her hair affectionately. "Last time I saw you, you were half that height."

"Yeah, but I wasn't the only one who grew," Toboe told him. "I used to be taller than Temari-chan, remember?" Kankuro nodded. "What are you two doing...here?" Toboe noticed the third of the Kazekage's children and stepped up beside him. He looked up at her with dark-rimmed eyes.

"Hey, Gaara-kun," she said. "Remember me?" Gaara nodded. "It's been a long time, huh?" He nodded again. "So...how have you been doing." Kiba could tell she was trying to get some kind of verbal response out of the quiet boy. Now that she had asked him a direct question, there was no way for him to avoid answering her.

"Fairly well. And you?" _That was verbal, all right,_ Kiba thought, _but probably not what she wanted._

"Can't complain." Toboe looked as though she were about to hug him, then hesitated. She gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. "You never were one for affection," she murmured. Gaara shook his head. "Well, it is good to see you three again."

"You know them?" Kiba asked, amazed. He never though he would see the day someone actually went up to Kankuro and hugged him so tightly...or the day the puppeteer hugged them back so enthusiastically. Toboe laughed, her eyes bright.

"Yeah! We stayed outside their village for a while...oh, maybe it was seven years ago?" She glanced back at Temari for confirmation, and the other girl nodded. "Yeah, that sounds about right. I always hoped I would see them again some day...I just can't believe I did!"

Kiba smiled, nodding. He was still amazed at how quickly she had run to the three siblings from the Sand, and how quickly they had recognized her and accepted her affectionate greetings. "Well, we're almost done, so it won't be long before the four of you can catch up with each other." He led her over to the familiar brown hair of Amurame Shino. That was the most he had really seen of the boy, and it was a part he could pick out anywhere. If Shino ever decided to cover his hair, Kiba wouldn't know him from Adam. "This is Aburame Shino, and he and"—he gestured with an upturned palm to the pale girl sitting beside Shino—"Hyuuga Hinata make up one of Konoha's finest chunin teams...alongside yours truly, of course."

"And you're all the action, aren't you, Kiba?" Shino muttered dryly without looking up from his book. Hinata smiled shyly up at Toboe.

"Hello, Toboe-chan," she said in her sweet, quiet voice. "We've heard about you indirectly from Kiba-kun." Kiba sighed. Of course, Hinata had guessed at Toboe was the girl who had 'a little more that interested him than information,' as Shino had put it.

Toboe nodded happily in greeting. She turned back to Kiba. "That everyone?" she asked.

"Everyone important," Kiba told her. "This is where we all hang out between missions and training, and if you ever need someplace to come and chill out, you're welcome here." He looked around. "Does anyone object to Toboe coming here?" he asked in a louder voice. The replies came back in a mixture of enthusiastic 'No!'s to murmurs of 'Why not?'; Kiba nodded, satisfied.

"So...why exactly is everyone here?" Toboe asked. "No...missions or training or anything like that?"

"Mmf," Choji grunted, swallowing his last handful of potato chips. "Nope." He dug back into the bag in search of more, found none, and pulled another out of his pack.

"Just here out of pure laziness," Neji added calmly. His swing was going considerably slower and lower than the enthusiastic Naruto's—Naruto, who looked as though he were inches away from swinging over the top bar.

"You see, if any of the jonin find us, they'll make us work," Shikamaru put in, raising a finger to emphasize his point. "But they'll never think to look here. We're chunin. Chunin don't play on slides and sandboxes."

"How long do you plan on hiding here?" Kiba asked.

"Until the work is done," Shikamaru told him. "We reached an agreement that no one gets seen, so that no one can follow us back here." He turned his head. "You and Toboe still have to make that promise."

"I promise," Toboe said, stepping forwards.

"Me too."

"We will hold you to it!" Lee chimed in, giving Toboe a thumbs up and a wink. His teeth glinted in the sunlight. Toboe took a wary step backwards, and Kiba rested a hand on her shoulder.

"Knock it off, Lee, you're freaking her out." Lee smiled apologetically.

"I am sorry, Toboe-san," he amended. "It will not happen again!"

"So...now that we're all here...what do you want to do?" Kiba asked with a glance over at Toboe. The girl was not there. Instead, she was sitting next to Hinata, and the two girls were already chattering. He smiled. "All right. That works, too." He pulled a rubber ball from the pocket of his shorts and threw it for Akamaru to fetch.

**I would just like to point something out. Even thought they are all chunin, this does not take place after the timeskip. That's why Kiba is a chunin, but Akamaru isn't a big horse-sized doggy. It's weird, yes, I know, but it has a purpose. **


	5. Natural Enemies, Unnatural Friends

The morning of the planned "festival" dawned pink and peaceful. The sky was palest baby-blue, lighter in the east and steadily darkening as it stretched to the west, where a few late stars could still be seen. Altocumulus clouds hung in pillowy masses around the half-risen sun, tinged beautiful bright pink and orange-yellow. The rain that had happened four days since had had the desired effect of perking up the plants and brightening the flowers. Everything was full of beauty, life, and—as Might Guy and his protégée Rock Lee would have said—youth.

The last thought belonged to Inuzuka Kiba. It came to him as he stepped up to the front door with Akamaru after his morning walk. He broke out in a small fit of laughter. That _would _be what ol' Bushy Brows would say. Akamaru looked up at him curiously. _What's so funny?_ the dog asked innocently.

"Nothing," Kiba replied softly, scratching behind his friend's ears. "You had to be inside my head to understand it." He stood up and looked back at the silent, still-sleeping village. "Do you think Toboe-chan is up yet?"

_I don't think so. And if she is, she's probably helping her clan get ready for tonight. I doubt she'll have much time to wander with you until the festival starts._

Kiba sighed. He knew Akamaru was right, no matter how much he wished he wasn't. The festival would start at sundown. All of the preparations had been finished—and despite their best efforts, the chunin had been tracked down and forced to help. There was really nothing else to do but wait for the sun to set. The Inuzuka boy reached out and opened the front door. Akamaru trotted inside the cool house, ready for a quick nap to recover some of his energy. Kiba followed after him, only to stop dead two steps into his house.

Sasuke?

The black-haired boy was seated on the bench in the front hallway, looking incredibly tired and worried. Kiba could see a bandage across his left cheek and a pad of gauze taped to his knee. There was also a three inch-long rip across the front of his blue shirt. In his lap, he held a scruffy, rumpled heap of ginger fur. The Uchiha youth jerked his head up at the sound of Kiba's entrance. Their dark gazes met. Sasuke spoke first. "Good morning, Kiba," he said in a mild-sounding voice.

"Morning," Kiba returned. He dropped down on the bench beside Sasuke. "What's wrong? What are you doing here so early?"

For an answer, Sasuke indicated the fox on his lap. Kiba looked closer. Hikitsuko's pelt was ruffled and dirty. He had a tightly-wrapped bandage running diagonally from the left side of his neck to the space between his right foreleg and body. Kiba could smell fresh blood. He grimaced. "Ooh..."

"Got back from a mission some time around three this morning," Sasuke told him, stroking behind the young fox's black ear. "It took us a few hours to get back, and once we did, I had to quick patch the both of us up before I came here. Hikitsuko took a good slash from a rusty kunai. Kakashi thought it would be best if I brought him to your sister...just in case he needed any shots or anything like that."

"It's probably a good idea," Kiba murmured. "Akamaru's had all his shots. Might be a good idea for Hikitsuko to have the same." He too reached out a stroked the fox's soft, sleek fur.

The Inuzuka boy thought back to an incident that had taken place a little over two years ago. Sasuke and Hikitsuko had defeated him and Akamaru in a practice battle. Kiba remembered seeking out every opportunity for revenge. He remembered the hatred he had felt for the quiet boy. He had decided, after seeing Sasuke defensively kiss Naruto on the cheek, that the perfect way to exact revenge would be to spread rumors that the Uchiha boy was gay. They had never really made up after that incident.

In fact, it was many months later before the two boys actually started speaking to each other again. After a bizarre incident involving a bo staff, several kunai, and a renegade ninja who was deathly afraid of foxes, the two boys settled on a sort of mutual respect for each other. Even their animal partners, who were by nature enemies, began to tolerate one another. This was proven when Akamaru put his nose up to Hikitsuko's and licked his cheek gently. _I hope he's all right, Kiba. _

One of Hikitsuko's silky black eyes opened and he returned the lick. Akamaru's tail wagged. Sasuke let out a soft chuckle as he started to untangle bits of grass and twigs from the messy ginger fur.

"He's huge!" Kiba whispered, just now registering Hikitsuko's growth. The fox had to be at least two feet long now, and possibly a foot and a half high. Sasuke gave him a quick smile.

"Foxes' growth is dependant on their food supply," he explained. "That's why foxes in the village are so much smaller than the ones that live out in the forest. A fox will only grow as large as its territory will support it. The more food they have, the bigger they can grow. Since he lives with me, and his supply of food is almost endless, there is a possibility that he might grow big enough for me to ride on some day."

"Would you want him to be that big?" Kiba asked. Sasuke's mouth twisted to the side, and after a few moments, he shook his head.

"No, probably not. Keep in mind, he sleeps in _my_ bed. Besides, can you imagine how much he would _eat_?"

Kiba laughed. Just then, the door across from them opened, and one of Hana's Haimaru stepped out. He was followed by his two brothers, and in turn, Hana. Hikitsuko shrank back against Sasuke, fur bristling. Kiba could understand his fear. Akamaru was one dog the fox could handle being around—but the Haimaru Sankyodai were something else entirely.

"All right, Sasuke, I'm ready back here if you are," Hana said, smiling sympathetically. Sasuke hesitated. He lifted Hikitsuko into his arms and cradled him like a baby. The fox licked his chin and barked a couple of times. There was a high-pitched note of fear in his voice.

"Don't worry," Sasuke whispered. "Hana knows what she's doing. She won't do anything to hurt you." Hikitsuko whimpered. "I know she's got those three, but they won't hurt you either." At this, Hana uttered a few whispered commands, and the three gray dogs trotted off. "Look, I promise I'll be back for you as soon as I can." He bent down and kissed the fox's forehead. "Now you be good for Hana, all right?" Hikitsuko licked his face again and nodded. "All right." Sasuke stood up and handed the fox over to Kiba's older sister. "Thank you, Hana."

"Sure thing," Hana replied. "I couldn't help overhearing, though. I'll keep the Brothers away from the room where he'll be." Sasuke nodded. "Also, I want to keep him here overnight, just to make sure everything's all right." The Uchiha boy hesitated, but in the end, he nodded again. Hana rested a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry about it, Sasuke. He's not going to die." She paused in thought. "Do I have your permission to give him a few basic shots as well—you know, rabies, distemper..."

"Sure."

"Great." Hana stopped again. "Kiba, there's some money on the kitchen table. Take Sasuke out for breakfast, will you?"

At this, both boys started to protest. Kiba claimed that Sasuke was perfectly capable of getting his own food—and besides, he'd just taken a very long walk with Akamaru and wanted to get a bit more sleep. Sasuke maintained that he would be fine and rarely ate breakfast to begin with; all he really wanted was to go home and sleep, the mission he had just returned from earlier that morning was very trying on both body and nerves. Hana stopped them by holding up her hand.

"Sasuke, that's a lie. You _do_ eat breakfast, same as everyone else. I've smelled food on you whenever I see you in the mornings. Besides, I know your bond with Hikitsuko is like Kiba's with Akamaru. And the last time I had to keep Akamaru to patch him up, Kiba hadn't eaten a single thing all day and fainted from hunger right in the middle of training." Sasuke gave Kiba a funny look, and the Inuzuka boy scuffed the floor with his foot. "I don't trust you to eat anything without someone watching you, and Kiba is standing right here. Besides, some day the two of you might be forced to work together. You should start building bonds now in preparation for that."

It was useless to argue with Hana. Kiba sighed in defeat and grabbed the money. He shoved it into the pocket of his jacket and stumped back to the hallway. Sasuke was giving Hikitsuko a final parting rub behind the ears. "When can I come back for him?" he asked Hana.

"I'd say around ten tomorrow morning," replied the young vet. "Just to be on the safe side. If you like, you can send Kiba back with something for him to sleep with—like a shirt or a blanket, something that smells like you." Sasuke nodded. "All right. That's enough. It's good that you got him here so quickly. I should start working right away." Hikitsuko gave Sasuke one last lick and loving look before Hana carried him back into the room.

"You don't have to worry," Kiba murmured softly. "Hana's an expert vet. Hikitsuko's going to be fine."

"I know." Sasuke sighed. "I just wish I didn't have to wait a whole day to have him back with me." He glanced up at Kiba as they started towards the door. "Will she want me to come back every day afterwards to check up on him?"

"Probably," Kiba said with a shrug. He gave the boy a manly sort of pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry, man. Everything's gonna turn out fine. Now where do we want to eat?"

;-:-;-:-;

"This is it."

Kiba stopped a few steps ahead of Sasuke, looking curiously over his shoulder. The Uchiha youth was standing at the mouth of a narrow alleyway, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. His dark eyes were misty with memory.

"What is it?" Kiba asked, walking backwards until he was standing beside the other boy. Sasuke turned to glance at him briefly.

"This is the alley where I found him," he murmured. "God, it feels like it was ages ago...but it's only been about two years." He gave Akamaru a swift look. "I was thinking about Akamaru when I saw him. I wondered for a while if I could train Hikitsuko up and fight with him. That's why I decided to take him in, in the end."

"Wait...you actually wanted a fighting partner like Akamaru?" Kiba pointed to the dog perched on his head as he mentioned his name. Sasuke nodded. "I thought you were all about fighting by yourself. I didn't know you wanted to do things with anyone else."

"I didn't at first. In the beginning, Hikitsuko wanted me more than I wanted him. He kept doing stupid things like chasing his tail and trying to lick me all over." Sasuke sighed. "And I hated it...but as I walked away from him, I started to feel sorry for him. It was then that I started thinking about training him to be my partner." He laughed softly. "That crazy little fox...when I went back, he started to cold-shoulder me like I had him. It took me a while to convince him that I wanted him to come along with me after all."

Kiba had never really heard the whole story behind how Sasuke had found the skin-and-bones fox kit and turned him into what he was now, a sleek and muscular fighter. He wondered why the boy was telling him now. _He must need to talk,_ he thought. _A lot of people want to talk about things when they're upset._

"And the rest is history?" Kiba asked. Sasuke nodded. "How long did it take you to finally understand Fox?"

"Not long, really. After a while, I just got used to him making certain sounds when he wanted something, and with a little help from someone who spoke Fox, I filled in the gaps."

"You mean _Naruto_?"

Sasuke turned. Kiba's voice had risen in pitch a little on the other boy's name. The Uchiha gave him a hard stare. "Yes, _Naruto_. Why? Do you have something against one of my friends?"

_Naruto's his friend? I didn't know Sasuke even __**had**__ friends._ "No, not at all," Kiba blustered. "Sasuke, we were just little twerps back then. I mean, come on, lighten up." Sasuke did not, unfortunately, lighten up. The hard look stayed. Kiba dropped his head. "Anyways...I don't think I ever really said it to you back then, so...guess I'll say it now." He looked up. "I'm sorry about what I did to you and Naruto back then...with the whole 'being gay' thing."

It took a few seconds, but the icy look lifted from Sasuke's eyes. He nodded. "I accept your apology," he murmured. "Like you said, we were just little twerps back then." He gave the alley a final look. "So, have you decided where we're going to eat yet?" Kiba shook his head. "Unless you object to ramen..."

"I went there with Toboe-chan a few days ago!" Kiba burst out, then quickly clapped his hands over his mouth. Sasuke laughed.

"Well, we all know about you and Toboe..." he began, and started to walk in the direction of the Ramen Bar. Kiba stood behind him, fuming.

"Listen here, Uchiha! Toboe is just a friend, d'you hear me? She's a friend! Not a girlfriend—unless by that you mean she's a friend and she's a girl, which she is, but still! She's a friend, all right?! Just a friend!" He started to bolt after Sasuke.

"You know, Kiba," Sasuke said, slowing down to let Kiba catch up with him, "if you hadn't made such a big deal about it, I probably would have let the subject drop. But now you've given me a great opportunity to get on your case about Toboe."

"Arrrrgh!!" Kiba snarled, clenching his hands into tight, angry fists. Sasuke let out a couple of laughs. "She's just a friend! It's just like you and Naruto!"

This seemed to sober Sasuke up, but Kiba hardly noticed. "Come on," Sasuke told him, "we're almost there. And will you stop making such a scene?"

;-:-;-:-;

As it usually was in the mornings, the Ramen Bar was nearly empty. Kiba spotted a couple of genin (he could tell their rank just by looking at them) huddled together in a booth. They were chatting excitedly about the festival that night. "I heard they had wolves with 'em! _Huge _wolves!!" "Doesn't some clan here have dogs? I wonder if they're related." "I dunno. My dad says there's some kinda running feud..."

_Feud?_ Kiba wondered. He shrugged it off. He had taken up full chunin pride by now. Genin knew nothing. He didn't have to listen to anything they said.

When he looked back at Sasuke, the dark-haired boy had already seated himself at the bar and ordered a bowl of chicken ramen. Kiba vaulted nimbly onto the stool next to him and ordered pork ramen. He also asked that there be little bits of pork in the broth. The waitress gave him a skeptical look, but nodded anyway.

"So...I take it back when Naruto"—Kiba kept his voice carefully neutral when saying the boy's name—"was helping you understand Fox, he probably dragged you here a lot."

"Actually, he did," Sasuke replied. "I used to hate ramen but now...well, it's all right." He shrugged apathetically. "And Hikitsuko only liked the way it smelled. Once he tasted it, he decided he couldn't stand it."

"Well," Kiba said as two bowls of ramen slid down to them, "I'll warn you here and now, the flavor you got is Akamaru's favorite. The only reason I asked for meat in mine was to keep him away from yours." Akamaru hopped down from Kiba's head and sat patiently on the bar. He cocked his head to the side and drew his front paws up against his chest. Kiba fished out a piece of pork with his chopsticks and gave it to the begging dog. "Now get down. You know they don't like you up there."

_They can kiss my furry backside, then,_ Akamaru barked, but jumped down anyways. He sniffed the air and eyed Sasuke's bowl hungrily. _That's a fine bowl of ramen you've got there, Sasuke._

Kiba translated this. Sasuke smirked and put his arm protectively around his bowl. "I don't intend to share, if that's what you're thinking," he growled. Kiba plucked another chunk of pork from his bowl and tossed it to Akamaru. The puppy leapt into the air and caught it neatly in his mouth. He dropped his head down low and cocked it to the side to chew. A bit of juice dripped from between his jaws. Kiba made a move with a napkin, but Akamaru was faster.

_I can take care of it!_ Tail wagging, the tawny pup stuck out a pink tongue and lapped the broth and meat juice off the wooden counter. Kiba laughed. _See? I told you! Good as new, right?_

"You're a riot, Akamaru."

Sasuke sighed softly. Kiba knew he was thinking of Hikitsuko. He wished there was something he could say to the other boy, but he couldn't think of anything new to tell him. He had already run through the list of what he was "supposed" to say: Don't worry, Everything's going to be all right, I know how you feel, Hana's good at this kind of thing, Hikitsuko will be back with you before you know it...What else could he say?

They finished eating in silence. Kiba payed for the ramen, and Sasuke added a little more for a tip. He motioned for Kiba to follow him. _We must be going back to his house to get something for Hikitsuko._ The Inuzuka boy nodded, feeling the familiar weight of Akamaru land on his head.

;-:-;-:-;

"What the hell happened here? Was your house attacked by six-inch warriors?" Kiba couldn't help blurting out. He pointed to the thin grooves carved into nearly every wall about six inches from the floor. Sasuke turned around curiously, then burst out laughing.

"The day after I found Hikitsuko, I left him home alone while I went to school...he found a kunai and carried it _everywhere _with him." He shrugged. "It wouldn't be hard to patch all those grooves, but...somehow I just like them there. I guess they make me think of how stupid he was when he was little, and how funny it was to see what trouble he got himself into."

Sasuke started down the hallway, which ended in a kitchen. Kiba flopped down in one of the chairs at the table. He could see a ceramic bowl a little bigger than the one Akamaru ate out of resting on the floor. A first-aid kit, still open, lay on the counter, and bandage wrappers that had yet to be thrown away were scattered around it. As he stared at it, Sasuke closed the box up, then gathered the wrappers in a quick sweep and threw them all away. He sighed. "Nothing down here I can really give him. I'm sure your sister has something to feed him from, right?"

"Yeah. I can understand giving him his own bowl to eat out of would make him feel more at home, but Hana might think it's going overboard."

Sasuke nodded, then studied his shirt as if for the first time. He slid his hand under and poked his fingers through the small slash. "I just noticed this," he muttered, his voice full of mild surprise. "Too much on my mind, I guess." Kiba snorted with laughter. "Hang on...I'm gonna go change." With that, he darted up the stairs. Kiba followed him up. "You might wanna stay down there. I'm not really wearing an undershirt."

"C'mon, Sasuke! We're both guys," he called up the stairs. "Maybe I can help you find something. I would know all about something that smells like you." Sasuke turned around, shrugged, then started climbing again. Kiba took that as a yes and kept climbing. He went up stairs on all fours like a dog. He didn't know why. It was just his habit.

Sasuke's room was on the left of the stairs. Kiba could see that it was fairly large, with a couple of windows that were flung open to let in fresh air. _Hikitsuko likes that, I'll bet. He can probably smell the forest._ However, despite the open windows, the air inthe room was still heavy with the spicy, dark scent of fox. Hikitsuko must have scent-marked everything in the room. The Inuzuka youth stood in the doorway as Sasuke quickly stripped off his shirt. "Damn it!" the Uchiha boy swore softly. "It didn't just cut my shirt!"

"Are you all right?" Kiba asked.

"Yeah...it probably didn't bleed much, otherwise there would've been blood on my shirt and Hikitsuko would've told me. Just a little scratch. I'll be fine. I've had my shots like any good boy." Kiba laughed. Sasuke appeared in front of him, dressed in a clean shirt, holding the old one out. "Do you think this would work? It just came off of me, so it should really smell like me."

Kiba shook his head. "It smells like fighting, like sweat and metal and blood—sometimes fear, too. That may scare him." Sasuke nodded and dropped the shirt behind the door. "Maybe something from the bed. That would smell like you when you sleep, and that will probably calm him down."

Sasuke nodded and pulled the pillowcase away from his old pillow. "You smell differently when you're asleep?" he asked.

"You smell more...relaxed. Akamaru always sleeps on my pillowcase when I'm not there." As if to confirm this, the whitish dog nodded rapidly. Sasuke nodded as well. "Now, Hana probably wants me to ask you this, so I'll get it out of the way now. What do you plan on eating the rest of the day?"

Sasuke folded up the pillowcase and placed it on the desk across from his bed. "Probably nothing for lunch. That was more breakfast than I usually eat. For dinner...fried rice sounds good." He sighed and leaned against the desk with one hand. The other hand reached out and touched a framed picture of the Uchiha boy with Hikitsuko on his shoulder. Kiba studied the pictures over Sasuke's shoulder. He could see not only the photo of the boy and fox, but also of smiling groups. Some of them were faces he dimly remembered seeing. For a moment, the Inuzuka youth felt as though he had stumbled into some secret realm of Sasuke's. Then, a soft bark from Akamaru brought a flash of realization: _They're all Uchihas...this is Sasuke's clan, his family. _Sasuke sighed again. "Hikitsuko loves fried rice, but I rarely give it to him nowadays, except as a treat for doing good work on a mission. It's probably bad for him."

Kiba had a feeling he knew what Sasuke was telling him. He leaned casually against the doorframe. "How much soy sauce do you use?" he asked in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. Sasuke laughed softly.

"A _lot_. That's probably why it's so bad for him." He adjusted one of the pictures in the row, placing it a little further to the side and away from the rest. He did this with a sort of respectful air, as if to say, _This picture should have its own place on the desk, away from the others. _Kiba saw it was his team picture, and from the look of it, it had recently been framed. There was a nice, deep crease running diagonally across Kakashi's grinning face, and the edges of the photograph were ragged in some places. A watermark, as though someone had rested a cup of something atop the picture, dimpled the upper left corner.

"Well, I can't really promise you anything—I don't really eat fried rice, and if Hana or my Mom don't _hear_ me making it, they'll certainly _smell_ it." Sasuke looked up from the line of pictures curiously. Kiba continued, "But I'll try and slip him a little tonight." He scoffed. "Hana only _thinks_ she keeps her keys in a secret spot."

"You would do that?" Sasuke asked. Kiba shrugged.

"Like I said, I can't make a solid promise, but I'll try."

Sasuke flashed him a quick smile. "Thanks. That means a lot...that you would do that for me."

"Hey," Kiba said with a casual flip of his hand, "I know what it's like to watch a close friend hurt, and I know what you're feeling. If you were in my place, I'd ask you to do the same for Akamaru." He reached out his hand. Sasuke handed him the pillowcase.

"I guess you're leaving?" he asked. Kiba nodded. He watched Sasuke's fingers brush the picture with Hikitsuko once again, as if he were trying to stroke the fox's fur. Hikitsuko was much smaller in that picture. He had his paws gripping the sides of Sasuke's head, and he was gnawing at the boy's hair. It was then that Kiba noticed Sasuke was laughing in the picture. _For all he said he refused it in the beginning, he must really love that fox,_ he mused. _I wonder who took that picture..._He shook the thought away and focused on Sasuke.

"I should probably get this back to your little fox friend—who isn't so little anymore, if I haven't already told you—as soon as possible." Sasuke nodded. "Take it easy, Sasuke." He gave a sort of half-wave and left.

_That was a good thing for you to do,_ Akamaru told him. _I'm glad the two of you have gotten over that stupid little thing. Really, it was pretty stupid._

"Yeah, it really was." Kiba, just out of curiosity, glanced from side to side and lifted the pillowcase to his nose. He gave it a quick sniff. He could smell the dark odor of fox on the soft fabric, peppery and wild. There was also a human smell, and Kiba recognized this instantly. "I've never really paid attention to his scent before," he said in response to Akamaru's questioning bark. "I usually just scent for foxes if I want to find him."

_You're so weird sometimes,_ the pup told him. _Come on, let's get this back to Hana and figure out how we're going to sneak the fox his rice._ Kiba nodded.

;-:-;-:-;

The sun had decidedly risen in the sky when Kiba returned home. He and Akamaru decided they were both completely wiped out, and would sleep until the time for the festival arrived. Kiba handed the pillowcase off to his sister, who told him it didn't look like Hikitsuko's wound was infected. That was good news that the boy decided to pass off if he saw Sasuke that night.

The tired boy dragged himself upstairs and flopped down on his bed. Akamaru curled up beside him. The window was open, and a fresh-smelling breeze ruffled the curtains. Kiba snuggled up closer to his beloved ninken and dropped into a light sleep.


	6. The Festival Begins

"Kiba, either wake up now or you're staying home tonight!" Tsume growled, giving her son a sharp prod in the side. Kiba's sleep, which had started out as a light nap, had quickly turned into full blown sleep, complete with dream. Blame puberty, that was what Kiba would have said.

He heard his mother's words from far away...and they came from Toboe's mouth. She started jabbing him in the ribs. "Come _on_, Kiba!" the Ookamizuka girl persisted. "There's going to be food there, and as I recall, you're a fan of food." Then Shiromaru leapt up onto Kiba and licked his face with a hot, wet tongue. Kiba spluttered and stumbled away. His eyes blinked open, and he glimpsed the faces of his mother and her ninken partner briefly before he fell out of bed.

"Graceful," Kuromaru grunted. "Ten out of ten on that one, though. You've got form, boy."

Kiba sat up, scratching his head in a mixture of drowsiness and confusion. He blinked lazily a few times before his eyes shot open wide. "Ack! The festival!!" he shouted. "IforgotIforgotIcompletelyforgot!"

"Calm down." His mother placed a hand on his head to still the frantic boy. "I know you're all ready to get together with your friends and have a good time tonight, but there's no reason to fly off the handle." She flicked her free hand to the chair pulled crookedly up to his desk. A change of clothes, likely put there by either her or Hana, was draped across the chair back."For starters, you need a quick change."

Kiba looked down and noticed his shirt and shorts were wrinkled horribly. He could also see a small drool spot just below his left shoulder. Damn! Just when he thought he had stopped doing that. Self-consciously, he wiped his left cheek and felt a wet spot. Sick. "Try to look reasonably nice for tonight, all right?" Tsume continued, heading for the door so her son could change in privacy. "You don't have to wear what I picked out, but if at all possible avoid wearing what you always wear."

"Are you going?" Kiba asked. His mother stopped, turned back, and nodded.

"Of course. Hana's staying here, though, to keep an eye on Sasuke's fox." She shrugged. "I thought it would have been fine if she left one or two of the Brothers here with him, but apparently he's afraid of them."

"Are you going to trade?"

Tsume hesitated. Kiba had noticed she was wearing a small pack. "Well..._I_ won't, but someone will be trading a few of our things with them."

"Why aren't we trading ourselves?"

The question would have been innocent, but Kiba was being far from innocent. Hana's reaction to the news of the Ookamizuka's arrival, all the unexplained worry on the night of the thunderstorm, Toboe's hesitance to meet up with anyone from Kiba's clan, the genin's talk of a feud...the people around him knew something he didn't (even the _genin_ knew!), and he was determined to be let in on the secret. Tsume sighed and leaned back against the wall.

"Kiba...there's a long story," she began. Kiba nodded expectantly. "But by clan law, I can't tell you until you reach sixteen years of age." Kiba slammed his fist angrily into his mattress. Tsume sighed again. "I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. I can't tell you, and neither can Hana." Before Kiba could protest further, she left, Kuromaru behind her. Kiba let out a loud growl of frustration and ran his fingers through his dark brown hair.

"Secret this, can't-tell-you that!" he spat harshly. "Why does it have to be when I'm sixteen?"

_It's the age of manhood,_ Akamaru told him plainly. Kiba lifted his head.

"Do _you_ know what it is, Akamaru?" he asked, a little menacingly. The brown dog shook his head.

_I'm as clueless as you are, Kiba. Don't feel too left out, though. The Haimaru each told me the same thing Tsume-san told you: I can't know until you're sixteen._ He sighed. _And it's getting on my nerves just the same. _

Kiba pushed himself up. Sixteen...it would be another two years before he could know the reason behind his family's candid worries. Two whole years, and then he would finally know. He pulled the clothes off his chair and studied them carefully. The shirt was one he hadn't worn in a long time: a crimson-colored t-shirt with the white words "got FANGS?" screen-printed in brackets, and white-outlined Inuzuka Fangs on either side of the words. He almost burst out laughing at the thought of walking up to Toboe wearing it. She'd probably die laughing. Still, he could always were his jacket over it. He pulled the cream-colored shirt he had been wearing over his head.

The Inuzuka boy paused to study himself in the full-length mirror he had in his closet. On a lark, he pulled a few muscle-exposing poses. Akamaru made retching sounds in the background. _I'm gonna hurl!_ the dog teased. Kiba grabbed a sock from the floor and threw it at his friend. Akamaru gave a barking laugh and kicked the sock back at Kiba. The Inuzuka boy snatched up the red shirt and yanked it over his head. It was a little small, but he liked that. You could see the muscles years of shinobi training had built better with a tight shirt. Overtop, he zipped up his dark gray jacket and flipped up the hood. _You should probably change those pants, too,_ Akamaru told him.

The pants Tsume had left him were a pair of old jeans that were ripped and torn in quite a few places (_I wonder if she knew those tears were there,_ Kiba thought.), yet had still held onto their dark blue color. As Kiba unfolded them, he saw the gleaming silver chain he had attached to two of the right belt loops. (_Wonder if Mom knew __**that**__ was there, too._) He remembered liking these jeans, how they gave him a sort of badass feel, and quickly swapped the rumpled cargo pants out for them. He had ripped the jeans open with his own teeth and added the chain one night for a quick Halloween costume. He had also bought a black, silver spiked-studded, leather collar for Akamaru, and a fake piercing for his tongue for the same purpose. "All I need is that spiked choker," he joked. He grabbed the forehead protector from his desk and quickly tied it on in the usual spot. Akamaru nodded from the floor.

_You look...Well, some people would say nice,_ he barked. _Other people would say you look like a juvenile delinquent._ Kiba laughed dryly and beckoned to the young dog. Akamaru hopped from floor to chair, from chair to desk, and from desk to Kiba's head. Kiba nodded and set out to follow his mother.

Hana walked past him in the hallway. Her eyes widened when she saw her little brother, and Kiba watched her go from torn jeans to chain and back again a few times. "Don't look at me like that!" he protested. "Mom set this out for me to wear!"

"Yeah, right," Hana muttered. She gave him a skeptical look, then shrugged. "Well, Mom obviously knows what she's doing."

"How's Hikitsuko?"

"Sleeping right now, and he's doing fine. If you ask me, that's the most he really needs, a good night's rest. He's up to date on all his shots now, so if you see Sasuke tell him that for me." Kiba nodded. "Have fun at the festival tonight for both you and me."

"Don't worry, nee-san," Kiba assured her. "I'll have enough fun for the whole village." As he said it, he was thinking of meeting up with Toboe. Hana's expression turned suspicious, and Kiba quickly wiped the Ookamizuka girl from his thoughts. He knew his face changed whenever he thought of her.

Tsume was waiting at the door. She narrowed her eyes at the sight of her son's dress, and Kiba knew for sure she had forgotten about at least the chain. However, the sun was already dipping low in the west, so there was no time for him to go back and change. Mother and son, with ninken beside them, headed off for the center of the village.

;-:-;-:-;

Kiba knew the second he walked into the crowded streets that the citizens of Konoha had gone all-out in their preparations. Paper lanterns, unlit, were strung from every building. Some were massive, brightly colored beauties, while others were modest-sized, white eggs. Venders stood on street corners with their carts of food and attention-attracting, smacking fans. Kiba heard someone call his name loudly and turned to see Naruto waving at him amiably. He turned back to his mother.

"Can I go?" he asked. Tsume glanced up at Naruto, then nodded. Kiba started after the blonde boy, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

"Kiba, can I have a quick word with you before you go?" his mother asked. Kiba gave Naruto a 'just one minute' gesture, and she pulled him off to the side. "Listen, I want you to promise me something. Have fun tonight, but don't go anywhere alone." The Inuzuka boy nodded rapidly. "If you see any of the Ookamizuka clan as you walk, look away and walk past them—and keep Akamaru close by at all times." Again, he nodded. "All right. I'll meet you back here once the festivities are over." He nodded once more, planted a quick peck on her cheek, then darted after Naruto.

"What was that all about?" the Uzumaki youth asked curiously. Kiba sighed.

"My Mom doesn't like these Ookamizuka too much," he grumbled. "She wants me to stay away from them and be careful." He shrugged, as did Naruto. "So, where's everyone else?"

"Toboe found us before you got here. Said she'd be back a little later. We're all waiting for her...and you. You're the only one missing." Naruto squinted up at Kiba. "Although, I think the two of you are just gonna find some quiet place to smooch, aren't you?"

"I haven't kissed her!" Kiba flared up defensively. Naruto laughed.

_"Yet,"_ Naruto murmured. Kiba paused, considering this, then nodded.

"Yet," he admitted. "But she's just a friend, Naruto."

"Yeah, right, I snuggle with _my _friends _all the time._" Naruto was referring to an event that had taken place the previous day. Teams 7 and 8 were the only ones who had not been captured and forced to work, and were hiding out at the playground. Kiba and Toboe had been sitting rather close together, although Kiba wouldn't call it _snuggling_, per say.

"Well, here we are!" Naruto gestured proudly to the group of assembled chunin. Kiba could see he wasn't the only one who was dressed differently than usual. Most of the boys had switched out their usual rough-and-tumble pants and shorts for dress pants or something similar. Naruto, however, still was in his loud, orange jumpsuit. The girls had decided on a different approach. Sakura and Ino's clothing could almost be considered kimonos. TenTen wore a long blue skirt, with a flowing rose-colored top. Hinata had changed her tan jacket for a pale lavender one with a small hood, and wore blue pants that flared out halfway down her calves. The three from the Sand had opted not to change their attire for the occasion.

Sasuke approached Kiba first. "How's...well, how is he?" he asked hesitantly. Kiba smiled.

"He's fine. Hana's home taking care of him. Last I heard he was sleeping it off."

The Uchiha boy sighed with relief. He gave Kiba a quick look-over, smirking. "Does your mother know you're out like this?" he asked. Kiba laughed.

"She's the one who told me to wear this."

"I can't believe that."

"Believe it." As he said this, Kiba stuck out his tongue at Naruto. The blonde boy rolled his eyes and looked away. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. The boy turned to see Toboe standing behind him.

Toboe had also dressed up for the event. He noticed that instead of her red vest, she wore a long-sleeved black shirt that flared out at the wrists. Her shorts were gone, replaced by a pair of black pants. Now he noticed that she not only had her ears pierced (two small, silver hoops hung from her earlobes), but also had a small silver stud in her left nostril. Around her neck was an eerily opalescent bone talisman, a necklace with three bone rectangles hanging from it about three inches apart. The two side rectangles were shorter than the middle one, and all three had strange symbols carved into them. She had a couple of wooden bangles on her right wrist, and he could hear a few more jangling together hollowly on her left ankle. Her feet were bare. The blue Ookamizuka Fangs on her cheeks were outlined in black. She stepped back gracefully, and the fading sunlight flashed across something tied around her waist. Kiba bent closer to look and saw...

A forehead protector?

Couldn't be!

But it was. Almost as if to assure himself she hadn't taken his, he reached up to touch the one he had tied around his forehead. No, it was hers, all right. But it wasn't from Konoha. Looking closer, Kiba saw it bore the shape of a crescent moon. _Hidden Moon Village? Is there such a place?_ Apparently, otherwise she wouldn't have that band around her middle. He reached out and traced the moon shape. "This is...interesting," he murmured. Toboe smiled.

"You like it?" she asked hopefully. "I saw yours, and knew I had one kind of like it, so I decided to wear it tonight." She stroked the metal plate. "I really only use it for special occasions, and it always attracts attention. Wonder why."

"It's probably because you're nomads," Kiba replied. "This is a hitai-ate, a forehead protector. Wearing one means you've graduated from a Hidden Village ninja academy. People probably wonder how you came by it if you've never lived in a village before. How did you get it, by the way? I can't imagine any village trading a forehead protector."

Toboe rubbed the back of her neck uncomfortably. "That's because no village would," she confessed.

"You _stole _it?"

"No!" Toboe stomped her foot, causing the bangles to jangle together windily. "Ookamizuka _never _steal!" She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. "No," she continued a little more reasonably, "I didn't steal it. I found it outside a village when I was little. We were leaving that village, anyways, so they wouldn't know I had it."

Kiba placed a hand on her shoulder, and she studied his jeans. "Nice pants," she told him merrily. "I like them. I bet they're nice and comfortable." She didn't say anything about the chain or the rips, causing Kiba to wonder if she saw them differently than other people.

"I like what you're wearing," he murmured, running a finger down the sleeve of her shirt. The fabric was stretchy and satiny-smooth. "You wear black well. It's a good color on you."

"It's for tonight," she whispered.

"Toboe-chan! Are those feathers in your hair?" Sakura called suddenly. Toboe looked over Kiba's shoulder at the pink-haired girl, nodding. "Can I see?"

Toboe stepped to the side and pulled one of the four feathers out of the white, wrapped tie-back in her hair. It was long and sleek, barred with thin, scrunched-together lines of white and dark brown. "This one is a turkey feather," she explained as Sakura, Ino, TenTen, Temari, and Hinata clustered around her. She pulled a rust-red and black striped feather out next. "This one is pheasant. We actually had to trade for this one." She pulled out a black feather. "This one is a little humbler than the others. It's just a crow feather, but it was the biggest crow I've ever seen." The fourth feather was light brown, stippled with darker brown markings. "This one came from some kid of hawk...I can't remember which one I pulled it from."

"You pulled them all out yourself?" Ino asked in amazement. Toboe shrugged.

"I have a weakness for pretty feathers," she replied. "If we bring down a good-sized bird in its prime, I always get first pick of the wing feathers." She slid each of them back into the tie-back, then knelt down to lay a hand on Shiromaru's flanks. "Shiromaru dressed up, too."

The wolf wore a talisman similar to his partner's, only the three bone rectangles were stained black. Two Ookamizuka Fangs had been painted on the sides of his narrow lupine face. There was a black band around his left ear, and four small feathers had been thrust through it. Kiba looked closer, wishing they would light the lanterns soon so he wouldn't have to strain his eyes like this. They were similar in color to Toboe's; he guessed they were either trimmed or taken from smaller birds colored like the bigger ones that had given Toboe her feathers. As he looked from wolf to girl, something occurred to him. Toboe was dressed primarily in black, with white accents. Shiromaru was...well, _shiro_ meant white, and he was very much white, and that which he wore to accent his appearance was black. _It's almost like a yin-yang effect,_ he thought.

Toboe turned back to Kiba, grinning broadly. "Listen, unless you had other plans, I have the perfect place to watch from," she whispered in his ear. Kiba looked at her and nodded. "All right. Let's go." She waved to the rest of the girls, then grabbed Kiba's hand and ran, weaving skillfully through the crowds as though she had done it her whole life. Kiba could do nothing but follow after her, hoping Akamaru had a good grip on his head.

"Up here," Toboe ordered, releasing his hand and leaping a good eight feet straight up into the air. She grabbed the edge of a small shelf on the face of a building and heaved herself up the rest of the way. Kiba looked down and saw Shiromaru trotting patiently up the fire escape ladder on the side of the building. Kiba crouched down, then shot up after her. Toboe reached over to lift Shiromaru onto the ledge with them. "Now, when everything starts up, you'll have to hide. I have a few parts to play, and I don't think it would be good if people saw the two of us together."

"Can you _please_ tell me what that is all about?" Kiba demanded, a little sharper than he wanted to. _All this crap about we can't be seen together, and how we have to be secretive about being friends? It's starting to bother me!_ Toboe jumped and dug her fingers into Shiromaru's white ruff. She hung her head slightly and sighed.

"I'm sorry, Kiba-kun," she breathed. "I really, really am...but I can't tell you. It's part of the clan laws..."

"You and everyone else," Kiba growled. "I have to be sixteen to know why in my clan...what about you?"

"We grow up knowing about the...well, about It," she replied. The Ookamizuka girl sighed. "Personally, I don't see any real reason for It. The others can believe in It if they want to, but I'm neutral." She grinned and put her hand out on the sun-warmed ledge, and with a swift sweep, stuck it under Kiba's.

They stayed holding hands like that until the last of the light faded. Kiba looked around. "I wonder when they're going to light the lanterns," he mused. Toboe looked over at him, then smiled.

"Who needs those?" she asked, pointing up at where a full, silver Moon hung overhead. "She's watching us...That's why we waited three days." Her voice had suddenly become faraway and dreamy-sounding, and her dark eyes were glassy.

Kiba opened his mouth to ask why the Moon being full was so important (and quite frankly, the change in her voice had given him goosebumps), when a low, moaning cry interrupted him. The misty look in Toboe's eyes vanished, and she motioned for him to hide. The Inuzuka boy nodded and ducked behind a large potted plant. He wiggled around until he was comfortable, then, transferring Akamaru into his lap, he pushed aside the plant's leafy branches and peeked out at the scene below him.


	7. Ancient Moonsong, Tribal Dancing

**This chapter is broken into two parts. The first part just about killed me to write. You see, the first time I thought of it, I could hear every part perfectly in my head, and I could hear when each and every person came in...and I heard it all together. Unfortunately, as with most things like that, once you sit down to write it, it completely escapes you. So if it was good, yay! If it kind of sucked, sorry.**

**The second part has a lot of drum beats involved, so if you need to smack it out on a table to get it into your brain, do so. The scene reads a lot better once you have the beat.**

The people below had been milling around, murmuring and shouting in crowd fashion. At the haunting cry, they stood stock-still and fell silent. The silence hung heavily on the humid, summer night air. Kiba looked down and saw two figures apart from the crowds. The first was a tall, burly man with a massive black shape beside him; the second was a lean, slender woman with a white creature at her side. As if on some silent cue, they raised their arms up to the black skies. Their hands were tilted slightly inwards, making a sort of V-shape. Slowly, steadily, a few people in the crowd imitated the gesture. A glance to his right revealed Toboe, who was now standing, lifting her arms up. Her eyes were glassy again. She looked as though she were acting under hypnosis.

"We bring you stories of coldest winter," the man boomed. Kiba was amazed at how well his voice carried, even though he was not using anything to amplify it.

"We bring you stories of hottest summer," the woman beside him murmured, her voice, though soft, carrying far.

"We sing you our songs of darkest night," another voice rang out. The speaker was male. The woman beside him chimed in next.

"We sing you our songs of brightest morning."

"We bring you our sacred dances," another male voice intoned.

"We bring you talismans of protection and luck," a female added.

"You have welcomed us into your village," the first speaker thundered.

"You have brought us into your home," his female partner put in.

The six speakers combined their voices into one eerie chant: "Moonchildren all, the Ookamizuka come to you bearing our gifts in return for the favors you have given us. We bring you the Northsong, the Dance of the Sacred Hunt, and finest trades. The Mother Moon shines down upon us as we begin."

All at the same time, the Ookamizuka dropped their arms. Toboe sat back down again, and glanced at Kiba. He smiled at her. She winked back at him. "We'll start with our Northsong," she whispered. "That's the best song. Sure, we could do a Huntsong, a Pupsong...but the Northsong is a homesong."

No sooner had she stopped speaking than the big man started up a low, throbbing moan. The sound of it made Kiba's bones buzz. A few moments later, the woman beside him started in. Her line was the same as his, but only an octave higher. The two voices rang out in perfect, chilling harmony. _Ohh-waah-ohh...Ohh-waah-ohh..._

"Alpha male and female," Toboe told him. "The Alpha male always has the lowest part, even if he doesn't have the lowest voice in the pack. That's because even though he's at the top, the Alpha male supports the bottom. Without him, the pack will scatter. His mate comes in with harmony, a little above him, because she doesn't support as much as he does."

Not long afterwards, a second male voice joined in. It held a much higher note than the Alpha male's, then climbed even higher, then dropped lower than it had started. Right as it sang high, a female voice joined, again harmonizing perfectly. _Hoo-OOO-ooh...Hoo-OOO-ohh..._

"Beta male and female," Toboe explained.

"They came in closer together," Kiba pointed out. Toboe nodded, smiling.

"Good catch! Yes, there's a reason behind that. An Alpha can go it alone if they must...but the Betas need each other. They can't do things alone for very long..."

The Alphas and Betas moaned in an eerie four-part harmony that rose the hair all over Kiba's body. He felt Akamaru stiffen in his lap and scratched behind the dog's ears, hoping to calm him down a little. The wolfsong made him think, for some strange reason, of a frigid blizzard.

A new voice, actually two at the same time, entered the Northsong. Their voices started in high, trailing off quickly and sustaining the low note for a good long while. _HOO-Ooh-oooooh...HOO-Ooh-oooooh..._Kiba wondered why the voices were getting closer together as they entered.

"Delta male and female...well, actually Delta female and acting Delta male. We only have one Delta. My aunt, Ke. Her mate died not long ago."

"I'm sorry..."

"What's to be sorry about? He wasn't exactly a nice person...Besides, he had weak lungs. We found him outside the camp one morning, barely breathing. When we brought him back into the camp, he wasn't breathing anymore. The acting Delta is my father's older brother."

There came a sudden crescendo of howls—that's what Kiba knew they were now, the humans were _howling like wolves!_—from groups scattered throughout the crowd below. They did not follow a set pattern, but all seemed to rise and fall in perfect harmony with the melodies already laid down. No two thrummed together the same way. It was impossible to pick out even one individual line anymore. The whole group seemed to be singing as one.

"The unranked pack," the Ookamizuka girl murmured. "Or clan, whichever you prefer. Each sings to the beat of their own heart, and because we're all one family, our hearts beat in perfect harmony with one another." She grinned. "Keep well hidden, Kiba-kun. My part is coming up soon."

Kiba nodded and made doubly sure that he was well covered. Her heard a strong, low voice rise up out of the unified song. It started in low, then started to climb higher and higher. Then, right before it reached its peak note, it gave a sudden shriek that seemed both out of place and perfectly planned at once. It reminded him, strangely enough, of how his own voice sometimes cracked when he spoke. _Hyow-ooooh-ow!...Hyow-ooooh-ow!..._

"Adolescent," Toboe explained. "That's my sister, Fumoto. She's the only one to sing that line these days. Some day I will, too." There was a kind of pride in her voice as she said it.

The only thing lower than an adolescent would be a little kid. He gave Toboe a quick look over and saw that she had risen smoothly to her feet. Her eyes flashed excitedly, and she cocked back her head and gave a piercing yip, which she held, slowly bringing it down, to end in a few yappy barks. The whole time she sang, her body rolled and swayed as though she were a puppet dancing at the end of a string. Her Fangs, edged with black, stood out starkly in contrast to her silver-washed face, and now Kiba knew why she had outlined them so thickly. It was part of the act. _Hip-pyoww-at-at-at!...Hip-pyoww-at-at-at!..._

The more he listened, the more he heard how cleanly she fit in with the rest of her clan. Toboe came in right as Fumoto's voice "broke," hitting the same high note as her sister did. When Fumoto started back on her line again, starting in low, that was when Toboe brought her high-pitched yip down low. The two sisters sang back and forth in harmony that was both misaligned and perfectly in sync. It was a wonder to hear, and it made his whole body go stiff. He was dimly aware that every hair on his head stood up straight. Akamaru's hackles prickled against his hands.

Then it hit him. The Northsong wasn't just a song—it was a story, the story of a northern snowstorm! He could hear the thump of snow falling from overladen boughs in the Alphas' parts. He could pick up the whine of icy winds through brittle sticks in the Betas' voices, starting in deceptively gentle, then quickly picking up vicious, destructive speed. The Deltas continued the sound of the winds, picking up broken bits of icy wood and whirling it around with the driving snows. Then the unranked pack joined the stormsong, their voices merging into the moaning of trees as the frozen winds tore through their delicate, dry branches. Then, as Fumoto climbed higher and her voice suddenly broke, he could hear a branch stretching, stretching, stretching—breaking! He heard the branch's story continued in Toboe's part, as the broken branch plummeted to earth, then crashed in a snowdrift, its twigs quivering with the impact.

The Northsong continued for hours it seemed. (He would later learn from Toboe that the Northsong was the longest song they sang, running somewhere in the realm of twelve minutes.) Kiba wondered when it would end, but at the same time, he wanted it to go on forever. Just listening to it made him feel weak.

Then, slowly, steadily, the voices grew softer and softer. Soon, the unranked pack faded out altogether. Fumoto was next. The it was the two Deltas. Then the Betas. Finally, it was only the two Alphas...and Toboe, who was still yip-yapping away. Then, the leaders faded out as well. Toboe stopped her _Hip-pyoww_s, and settled in on a noisy salvo of high-pitched barks. She was even frisking and frolicking around on the ledge, tossing her head and waving her hands in front of her. The Alpha male let out a stern-sounding bark, and Toboe let off two more yips before falling silent as well. She half-squatted, her hands on the inside of the thighs, her tongue poking childishly out of her mouth as she panted. Laughter broke out among the citizens of Konoha. It was obvious to them what part the little girl played. She was the over-excited youngster who got too caught up in the fun of singing to be bothered to stop with everyone else. A quick reminder from her elders had been all it took to set her straight.

Thunderous applause shook the ground, and Kiba found himself clapping as well. Toboe flopped down on the ledge, panting hard. Her face shone with excitement, as well as a fine mist of sweat-beads. The charcoal around her Fangs had started to run slightly. The edges of her smile were close to running off her face. "Did you like our song?" she asked. Kiba stopped clapping to stare into those dark eyes.

Toboe...who was she? He thought he had known before, but...after tonight, he knew he would always carry a little doubt in his mind. Was she human, or just a wolf in disguise—or, even better, an _ookami_ spirit in human form? The strange, mysterious traveler girl had attracted his attention because she seemed to him forbidden, something he couldn't have. It seemed to him now that there was something between their clans, but he couldn't be bothered with it. He took her hand gently in his and smiled.

"I loved it," he whispered. He paused for a few seconds, as if trying to convince the words he wanted to say to come out of his mouth without tying his tongue in knots. It took a bit, but he managed to get them out. "As much as I love you."

Toboe's dark eyes flashed open wide. He could see the full Moon reflected in them. For a heartbeat, Kiba wondered if she would run away from him in shock or disgust. But instead, she took his other hand and scooted closer to him on the ledge. She leaned forwards and pressed her cheek against his. Kiba felt the flat skin of their tattooed Fangs brush together, and he envisioned the two Fangs locking in place to created a red and blue rectangle. He felt her warm breath tickle his ear. "Kiba-kun...I love you, too..."

;-:-;-:-;

"What did he say was next?" Kiba asked. Most of the Ookamizuka had disbanded to search for food, something to drink, or, he noticed, to unpack an assortment of drums. Toboe glanced down at the bottle of water in her hand and took another quick gulp. She had gone down to buy the drink not long after the end of the Northsong.

"Dance of the Sacred Hunt," Toboe replied, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "I have another small part to play, but it's right at the end, and I..." She trailed off, glancing sheepishly up at him before taking another gulp of her water. "No. Not telling you any more. It's a secret."

"Aw, c'mon!"

"Nope!"

"Please?"

"Nuh-uh. Anyways, this will be a lovely opportunity for you to see the rest of my family." Toboe rested her hand on Shiromaru's shoulders and leaned back against the building with a quiet sigh. "So far, so good. I think this whole thing is going wonderfully, don't you, Kiba-kun?" Kiba nodded. "We'll probably start up the Huntdance in a few minutes...for now, we're just relaxing after a good howl."

"It was a storm," the Inuzuka boy murmured. Toboe looked at him curiously. "I could hear a storm in that song...it torn up trees and everything."

"Really? You must have heard trees because you live near them." The idea that Kiba had heard the blizzard tearing through trees seemed to amuse her. "I hear it sweeping across an open tundra, breaking up the brush and ripping up the grasses. We get a lot of different responses to our Northsong. I guess what you hear depends on where you come from."

Kiba thought about this. He had never heard wind break apart dry, brittle bushes. He had certainly heard heavy snow and ice rattle dead tree limbs and even break them off, though. That was the beauty of it all, he realized. You heard what you knew in that song, and different people knew different things. He heard a forest, Toboe heard a tundra...he wondered what the three from the Sand Village had heard in that song.

His thought were scattered by the beginning beating of drums. He looked back down to see a woman about his mother's age standing surrounded by five or so hip-high drums. A massive drum, probably five feet in diameter, stood beside them, and a young woman about Hana's age stood beside it. She held the round-topped stick loosely in her hand as she leaned against the monster drum. The woman had started up a fairly quick beat. _One-twotwo-three-four, one-twotwo-three-four, one-twotwo-three-four._

The burly man Kiba recognized as the Alpha male tapped out the beat with his foot, then grimaced and shook his head. He made slowing-down motions with one hand. The drum-woman made a gesture of obvious impatience and slowed down ridiculously. _One-two-two, one-two-two, one-two-two._ Again, the Alpha shook his head, making motions to speed it up a little. The drum-woman tried again._ One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four-three-three. _

Finally, the Alpha nodded.

Kiba watched as the Alpha unrolled a huge wolf pelt and draped it over his shoulders. The other Alpha did the same. They were followed by the two Betas, the "acting" Delta male, and four more of the unranked pack.

The Alphas jerked their heads up, then down, then left, then right. As they lowered their heads, the Betas, behind them, raised theirs. When the Betas dropped their heads, the Delta raised his and the Alphas looked right. The Alphas looked left, the Betas looked right, the Delta dropped his head, and a pair of "wolves" from the unranked pack raised theirs. It began again, moving like a chain reaction, and Kiba realized that they were acting out scenting their prey.

"All right, the Alpha male is Unari, and _he_ is my father," Toboe whispered. "They say the ideal Alpha pair is both strong and smart. My father is the brawn. Beside him is my mother, Getsuei. She's clearly the brains."

_Getsuei and Unari!_ Akamaru whispered. Kiba nodded. He'd had a sneaking suspicion he had seen the two of them before.

"Playing the fivescale drums is my aunt Ke, the one I told you about earlier. The one who is acting Delta, by the way, is actually my uncle, Manako. He's older than my father, so he thinks he should have won the Alphabattle..." She trailed off at Kiba's curious look. "...Well, my grandfather was Alpha, and when he died, all willing males took place in a battle to determine who would be the new Alpha. Back then, my father was a skinny runt, while my uncle was all muscle. My father won fairly, but my uncle has yet to give up the belief that my father cheated."

The rest of the unranked pack now donned brown leather hides with manes of thick, dark fur still hanging off them. High, branching antlers swept back from the tops of the heads of the hides. The group quickly moved into formation, becoming a herd. They, like the wolf pack, moved in time to the beating of Ookamizuka Ke's drums. One of them, distanced from the rest, limped heavily on every fourth beat. The drums stopped, as did the actors. The herd had been spotted.

There came a slow, two-tone rhythm. Kiba traced it to the wolf beside Toboe's aunt and saw that it was seated behind two small, round drums, and was pounding one after the other solemnly. "That's her partner wolf, Mizu."

"Mizu?" Kiba echoed. Mizu meant water. Water was blue, not gray. Toboe nodded.

"See how her fur is kind of bluish?" Kiba nodded. The huge wolf's pelt had at first struck him as being a strange kind of pale silver hue that rippled with black as she moved. Now, as he looked even more carefully at it, he could pick up blue in the silver wash. It was a clear, crystalline sort of blue that reminded him of new ice. "If you ever get to see her pelt up close, you'll see it even better."

Mizu beat out a steady _one-two, one-two, one-two_ rhythm. Ke waited, watching the Ookamizuka "wolves" as if for some kind of cue. The Alpha male looked left as the female looked right. They shifted side to side, and their gazes met. They looked back at their "pack", then back to each other. In one of the _one-two_s, they nodded up and down, slowly and deliberately. The Alphas nodded again, and the pack split cleanly in half. The drums made a smooth transition from their _one-two_ back to the original beat.

The "herd" became nervous, although it was plain to see they didn't know why. They tossed their antlered heads in agitation and stomped their feet. The limper looked from side to side, up and down, and let out a small bleating cry. For a moment, Kiba forgot there was actually a human under that hide. He gripped Akamaru tightly to his chest and shivered. The Ookamizuka knew these animals well enough to imitate their behavior and cries...He wouldn't have been surprised if they actually _were_ ookami.

"You know how we got the antlers to stay?" Toboe asked in a whisper. Kiba shook his head. "We trimmed a bit of the top of the skull away when we skinned the caribou. The antlers are attached to the skull. You keep the skull, you keep the antlers, aight? There's still a bit of bone under those hides, and it fits perfectly over the top of most people's heads."

The idea of wearing a piece of bone overtop his head chilled him, and he quivered again. Toboe's eyes were dancing with happiness as she watched the Huntdance. Kiba tried to insert himself into her mind, to see the dance as she saw it. He tried to picture the dancers in wolf pelts as real skin-and-flesh wolves. He saw the glint of their snow-white teeth, the flash of anticipation in their brilliant eyes, heard their excited pants. He saw the herd milling around nervously, trying to eat, but at the same time wondering if the wolves were near. The limping caribou seemed so much slower than the rest. It would be the easiest catch, and using its other three legs had really bulked up those muscles.

He barely noticed that the drums had started pounding faster. The rhythm was the same, just sped up. The wolves prowled closer, circling the limper and cutting it off from the herd. They froze, waiting. The drums slowed back to the original tempo. Slowly, the herd began to relax and browse again. Were there wolves here? Probably not. It was safe to grab a few more mouthfuls. Kiba imagined them tearing up grass, but he didn't know if there really was grass where these deer-like creatures had come from.

The easy droning of the drums lulled him, and Kiba found himself quickly relaxing with the herd. No danger. It was safe. Eat as much as you want. Do you see any wolves? I don't. There must not be any, then. Let's eat some more, shall we?

_**BOOMMMMM!!!**_

Suddenly, a rolling roar, not unlike the sound of thunder, shattered the calm. It seemed as though the whole watching crowd jumped in surprise. Even Kiba started a little, knocking his head against an overhanging shelf above him as he jumped. He swore quietly, rubbing his head. He glanced over and saw an identical shelf sitting over Toboe's head. She did not appear to have jumped. _Was she...expecting that thunder? Wait...was it even thunder at all?_

"You like the thunderdrum?" Toboe asked cheekily. "It's that huge one down there. Fumoto gave it a good smack. You might want to lean away from that wall—she's going to do it a few more times."

Kiba leaned forwards, resting his chin on one of the plant's branches._ It's a Ficus tree, _he noted randomly.

Ke's fivescale drums started up again, gaining in tempo and volume. The herd below became restless again. The wolves had started creeping in again, inch by inch, keeping their noses into the wind as much as they could. A few of the caribou bucked, some tossed their heads. The limper let out another cry, chilling Kiba to the bone. Fumoto, who was poised leaning away from the thunderdrum with both hands gripping the stick tightly, suddenly whipped her body around and swung the round-topped stick like a baseball bat. _**BOOMMMMM!!!**_ Again, Kiba jumped.

Then, the wolves broke cover, flying into the air in flashes of black, gray, brown, blue, silver, gold, red, and white. The Alpha pair headed the limping caribou off as the rest of its herd bolted. The caribou turned frantically from side to side, only to be met by a shining set of fangs from a pair of wolves. It let out a whining cry of terror and turned its back to the Alphas. The male struck first, leaping in and delivering a quick nip to the caribou's good hind leg. The deer-like animal turned, only to have the pair behind it give a few bites of their own. Everywhere their quarry turned, the pack was behind it to add their own efforts to the hunt. With each leap, Fumoto smashed the thunderdrum loudly and enthusiastically. _**BOOMMMMM!!!**_

The caribou hide became ragged as pack fangs tore into it. The limper's quick, jumping turns slowed considerably. Kiba swore he could smell warm blood, but he knew it was only his mind playing tricks on him. _These are humans under those furs,_ he told himself firmly. _They wouldn't hurt one of their own on purpose._

Finally, the Alpha male leapt at the defeated caribou full-on, driving his teeth deep into its throat. The dying beast let out one final bleat before it slumped to the ground, dead. Fumoto gave her thunderdrum on last blow before she slumped down beside it, exhausted. Ke continued the drumbeat at its original tempo. _The top part of that stick, the round part, must be weighted,_ Akamaru murmured thoughtfully. _I bet that's how she makes the sound even louder, because it hits the drum even harder._ Kiba nodded in agreement.

The pack below went through the actions of feasting. Kiba caught flashes of the person under the hide and wondered how they could lie so still while people dressed in wolf skins acted as though they were eating them. As they ate, the pack let out feral snarls and yips of pleasure. Their messages were obvious: Hey, don't eat this part! It's mine! Go get your own! This part is the good part...would you like some? Can I? All right!

When they finished, Kiba could see the person who had played the caribou lying completely exposed (the hide they had worn was completely torn apart). Without a sound, they simply got up and walked away, back into the watching crowd of people. It was even hard to see them, adding to the eerie reality of the dance. Like the rest of the clan, they were dressed completely in black. All that remained were strips of caribou skin and the proud, branching antlers. It honestly looked like a wolf kill had been demolished there. The pack moved away, going through the same motions they had in the beginning, but this time adding in their howls. They were similar to Northsong, but at the same time, sounded incredibly different. Kiba couldn't say how.

"Now I get to have fun," Toboe whispered. He didn't know where from, but the girl had somehow gotten a hold of the pelt of a gray wolf. He was close enough to see that the outer guard hairs were unusually banded with color, black at the tips, with bands of dark gray and a creamy sort of hue going down. Some of the bands were thicker than others, and they got lighter as they went down the hair. Downy, fluffy fur of a pale gray hue grew up in an insulating coat beneath. The pelt hung over her, transforming her into some kind of half-wolf, half-human. Seeing it up close half-scared Kiba. He could still see the holes where the wolf's eyes had been, could still make out the shape of its perked, triangular ears, could still see the long, bushy tail. The wolf's paws, which he noticed had been carefully preserved (_Probably bones and all, too_, he thought with a shudder), hung down her sides on thin strips of legs.

The pack was making its way towards her, still stepping in time and howling as they walked. Toboe stood up in readiness. Her eyes were wide, and she was panting with excitement. She half-crouched, then let off a few yips and yaps. She carefully synced her voice with the heartbeat of the drums. _Yip-two-bark-four, yip-two-yap-four, yip-two-bark-four-yip-yap!..._It was obvious to Kiba that she was the little pup who had stayed home, and who was now harassing the homecoming hunting party. What'ja bring me? What'ja bring me?

The Alphas looked up to her, and the female gave the male a gentle nudge on the cheek with her nose. He bent over, with the appearance of being sick to his stomach, and a wrapped bundle dropped into his waiting hands. He tossed it into the air and gave it a smashing kick. Amazingly, it flew straight through the air to land in front of the Ookamizuka girl. Toboe snatched it up quickly. Still moving with the drums, she stomped her right foot and snarled to the right. She whirled around and yipped to the left. She danced and scrapped and fought with thin air, snapping and growling all the while. Kiba didn't need to know wolves to know what was going on. If there were any more youngsters in her clan, she would be fighting with them over the package, which was obviously supposed to be food. With a sudden triumphant howl, Toboe held the package over her head and frolicked about with it. I won! I won! Look at what I got! The Alpha male let out another bark to silence her, and she sat back down again. The drums stopped. The dance had ended, but no one clapped.

Without taking the pelts off, the pack lifted their arms again up to the Moon above. It hung, huge and silver, in the summer sky, covered by a thin veil of clouds. Kiba stared up at it, wondering just how much significance it held for the strange wandering clan. He remembered them calling it the "Mother Moon." He wanted to ask Toboe, but she too was gazing up at the Moon in a sort of rapture. She had kicked her head back enough that the head of the wolf had fallen back, but the pelt still clung to her dark clothing. A haunting cry rose up, steadily building volume. Kiba thought it was another song, but quickly heard how wrong he was.

The voices raised in the eerie wail were not human in the least. The sounded like the humans had while singing Northsong, but...at the same time, they sounded more basic. It seemed as though these mysterious voices had come first, and the humans had just followed. Kiba listened in silent awe as the song climbed higher and higher into the night. The voices rose and fell all on their own, but it was as if some internal metronome kept them all on tempo, some hidden tuning fork kept them all on pitch. He didn't know what he was hearing until Shiromaru, who had been lying down beside the Ficus tree Kiba was hiding behind, stood up and lifted his nose to the sky. He let out two whining barks, then soared smoothly into a mellow howl that quickly picked up volume.

The wolves were howling now.

Wolfsong rested in the unlit lanterns, lay down on the clouds of humidity in the air, purred through the bones of everyone listening, and reached up to touch the Moon above. Kiba felt surrounded by some kind of terrible beauty. The howling no longer entranced him, it terrified him. In the deepest recesses of his mind, he felt a cold, black fear start to grow. He wanted them to stop singing, to close their mouths and do something else, to run away and chase a herd far away from his village. He clung to Akamaru, tears starting to leak from the corners of his eyes. The dog whimpered and huddled closer. They drew comfort from each other until the last notes of the song died away, taking Kiba's fear with it. Then, when he was sure that the thunderous applause that shook the ground would cover the sound of his tears, the Inuzuka boy broke down crying like a little kid afraid of the big-toothed, shaggy-furred, evil-eyed monster under his bed. _Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? I am..._


	8. Moonchildren

_Toboe's POV_

Toboe had no idea Kiba had been crying out of fear. She thought that like many people she had encountered, he was crying from happiness, or from the incredible beauty of the songs he had heard. She heard him sniffle softly and scooted closer to his hiding place. "I can understand," she murmured, reaching for his hand. She found it and squeezed gently. "Don't be ashamed of it...you're not the first to react to wolfsong like this, and you won't be the last, I'm sure."

She looked down as her father raised his arms up to the sky. "And now," he boomed, "until the watchful gaze of our shining, silver Mother, we begin our trades!"

"Come on, Kiba!" she hissed excitedly. "The trading's starting." She waited for the boy to pull himself out from behind the plant, rolling up the wolf pelt and sticking it back in the pouch at her waist. She wiped the back of a hand across her forehead, grimacing at the squeaking sound it made. The night was still warm, and the wolf skin was very heavy and very hot.

"You won't tell anyone..." Kiba began nervously, wiping at his eyes. Toboe smiled and shook her head. "Great. That's the last thing I need people talking about."

"I'm sure you weren't the only one. Come on! Let's go!" She started beckoning him hurriedly. "I want to find the others and see if the trades are going smoothly." She paused, studying him. "Pull your hood back up so no one sees your Fangs. And also, if you see me put three fingers against my leg, like this"—she curled her thumb and index finger together and laid them flat against her black-clad thigh—"go with whoever taps you on the shoulder and never look back at me once or give any hint that you know me, aight?"

As she expected, the Inuzuka boy's eyes filled with questions. _How can he be as old as he is and still not know? _she wondered. _Why do the Inuzuka wait until their pups reach a certain age to tell them? Are they all innocent like this until they are told? Are they all so accepting until they learn?_ She shook her head wonderingly. "By the way, this is for you," she said, cutting him off before he could ask her anything. She held out the parcel from the Huntdance. Kiba took the gift, nodding and whispering his thanks.

Beneath the soft white paper was a talisman identical to the one Toboe wore, with three white bone tags. It was clearly newer, for the bones had not yellowed with age or been polished by finger oils. Toboe lifted it up and fastened it around his neck, then tucked it under his jacket. As she reached down, her hand brushed his chest, and she felt his beating heart for a brief moment. It still pounded to the dance's rhythm. Lifting the first tag on her talisman, she explained, "It's a protector talisman, like the ones Shiromaru and I wear. This first tag is engraved with symbols that read, 'Mother Moon Above, protect this pup.'" She grabbed the middle tag. "This one says 'He'—well, actually, it's gender-neutral, but you can read yours for a boy—'is precious in my sight, and I ask that he be precious in yours as well.'" She grabbed the final tag. "This one finishes it and reads, 'I love him as you love me, and I invoke your protection upon him, Great Mother.'"

Kiba lifted his new talisman, his eyes growing wide and round as the Moon as he fingered the tags. He looked up at her, then swept her into a tight hug. "Thank you," he breathed in her ear. "I'll wear it always and think of you." Toboe's heart broke. She couldn't love this boy, she just couldn't! He was Inuzuka! She was Ookamizuka! She couldn't, she couldn't, she _couldn't_!! And yet...here in his arms...she felt as though somehow, there had to be a way to make their love possible. She burrowed deeper into the embrace, letting his arms overlap across her back. The feeling of being so close to another warm, breathing human was magnificent. It was too beautiful, too wonderful, to give up so easily.

Shiromaru gave her a warning rumble, _People might see, Toboe._ The girl nodded, slowly pulling back from Kiba's chest. She had felt their hearts beating together, and it made her light-headed. He was real. He loved her and she loved him and damn it all, he was _real_ to boot! She felt a swelling wave of triumph in her chest.

"Aight, let's go," she murmured. Kiba nodded, gathering Akamaru up into his arms to make the descent. Shiromaru made a clumsy leap to the ground, followed closely by Toboe. Kiba and Akamaru came next, with the boy landing light as a cat on the street. The two of them started off into the crowd. It wasn't long before Ino appeared, holding a black, dried piece of plant in her hands.

"Look at this!" she breathed. "I never thought I'd ever get to _see_ these flowers, much less be able to grow them!"

"Those are northern flowers," Toboe told her. Ino nodded. "Less sunlight than normal, and keep them out of the heat. Plant in a cool room, early fall." Ino nodded, still gazing at the seedhead in awe. Toboe smiled. "I'm glad we could find something you wanted."

"Does this explain all the questions?" Kiba asked. Toboe nodded. She had spent the two days between meeting the chunin and the start of the festival to ask questions and gather information about trading. Thanks to her hard work, it seemed as though everything would work out smoothly.

_Careful...Toboe, I smell Inuzuka, smells like it could be Kiba's dam..._Shiromaru growled. Toboe nodded, pressing three fingers against her thigh. She saw an imperceptible nod from Kiba, and a moment later, a hand descended on the boy's shoulder.

"Come on, Kiba," a woman commanded. "It's getting late. We got all our trading done, and Kuromaru's getting tired. It's time to head home." Toboe looked up to see a stocky woman with a mane of tangled brown hair and dark, doglike eyes. She turned her head and met Toboe's gaze, and those eyes narrowed dangerously. She bared her enlarged eyeteeth in a snarl of warning. Toboe saw her hand tighten defensively on Kiba's shoulder.

_Oh, yes,_ she thought dryly. _You should really be afraid of me, bitch. You know me, I'm just your average Ookamizuka: heartless, conniving, bloodthirsty. I was planning on drawing your little boy away from you with my fiendish charms so that he could be gruesomely dismembered by my pack. That's EXACTLY what I was going to do before you stepped in. Damn, looks like it's back to the shadows to plot and sharpen my teeth for next time._

"Come on, Kiba," she repeated. She continued glaring at Toboe, even though her voice was somewhat gentle and very motherly. "Get back to your pack, wolfgirl," she spat. "Leave my son alone."

"Lighten up, dog," Toboe retorted angrily, her voice a hiss made harsh by her scowling face. "This is supposed to be a celebration. If you can't set aside the bloodfeud for more than one night to enjoy yourself among my clan then don't bother to come next time. The boy knew how to accept others. You could learn a lot from him." Oh, it was so easy to be neutral around people who were neutral, but once you found someone who clung to the bloodfeud like a suckling pup to a teat, things got hard.

She locked stares with the fierce Inuzuka woman, fists clenched at her sides. All instinct said to look away and submit to her elder, but she knew better. To look away would mean giving up, not only the battle for dominance, but also giving up Kiba. That was something she wasn't prepared to do. It didn't matter to her if they were leaving the next day—she wanted to spend as much time as she could with Kiba, even if it meant standing up to his aggressive mother. _Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? _she wondered bizarrely. _Certainly you are...I can see it in your eyes._

The older woman looked away first, giving Kiba a quick jerk on the shoulder before she left. The black dog beside her, Kuromaru, Toboe guessed, snorted and shot angry looks at both the girl and wolf. Shiromaru raised his hackles. Kiba, as instructed by Toboe, did not turn back for one last look. Toboe, however, had no such restriction, and she filled her sight with the Inuzuka boy, her heart wrenching in pain. Why did she have to leave _tomorrow_?

_She certainly was a pushy one,_ Shiromaru observed calmly as the two Inuzuka and their dog partners left. _Well, what now, Toboe? You probably left some of your scent on his coat with that last hug._

"I'm not worried about that, Shiromaru," Toboe murmured. "We'll be long gone and untrackable before she thinks to sniff him over." At least, she hoped so.

;-:-;-:-;

"Howoo! Come here! I got something to show you guys!" Toboe called, waving her arm to call over Sakura, Ino, Hinata, TenTen, and Temari. She reached into the pouch at her side and pulled out a pure black feather and handed it to Sakura. "You seem like a black kind of person to me...it just struck me as a good color for you." The Haruno girl gasped with delight and took the feather. Toboe turned to Ino and produced a rust-red feather from the tail of a hawk. She handed it off. "You really like to wear blush. I figured this would pick up that red and accent it."

"Wow! Thanks!" Ino stuck the feather proudly into her ponytail and put her hands on her hips. "Now Sasuke-kun can't resist me!" She stuck out her tongue at Sakura. "Tough luck, forehead girl!"

The two of them started scrapping shrilly. Toboe ignored them and turned to shy Hinata next. She produced a brown and cream banded hawk feather. "I thought this one would be good for you, Hinata-chan," she said. "It's dark, which will accent the contrast between your hair and skin...and light, so it picks up on your eyes." Hinata whispered her thanks and held the feather delicately, eyeing like a child looks at a brand new toy, with excitement and confusion: _What is this wonderful new thing, and what am I going to do with it?_

"TenTen-chan, I think you'd wear this one well." Toboe handed the girl a bluish feather. "It's a heron feather...It should pick up on the little bit of blue you have in your eyes."

"You sound like a fashion consultant," TenTen giggled. "Thank you."

"Sure thing. I noticed how you all seemed to like my feathers every time I wore them, so I picked some out for you all." She turned to Temari. "This one is good for you, Temari-chan," she finished, handing the tall girl a silvery feather with a black tip. "You remember when we were still little runts, and we found that mockingbird nest outside? You loved those feathers...I figured this one is like that."

Temari's eyes gleamed as she remembered the incident. She reached down and scooped Toboe into her arms. "I can't believe you remembered that!" she whispered. "Thanks!" Toboe wriggled free, her tongue poking out of her mouth. She gave a high, barking laugh, a laugh that sounded similar to the yips she had made during the dance.

"Nee-chan, time to call it a night!" a voice called. Toboe turned with an exaggerated groan and droop.

"I don't wanna!" she complained. Fumoto stood with Kiiromaru, tapping a foot impatiently. "C'mon, nee-san, five more minutes..." Fumoto shook her head firmly. Toboe groaned again and turned back to the five girls.

"You have to go?" Sakura asked. Toboe nodded. "Well, we'll see you tomorrow, right?" Toboe hesitated, and Fumoto dove in.

"Probably," the young woman chimed in. Toboe looked up at her sister in mixed confusion and amazement. They...did she mean when they were packing up? "Well, good night, girls." Fumoto placed a hand on her sister's shoulder and steered her forcefully away from her friends. "Come on, pup. Father's looking everywhere for you. We can't leave without you."

"When you said I'd see them tomorrow..."

"That depends if you want to."

"But we're leaving tomorrow!" Toboe protested. Fumoto grinned, exposing her sharp, whitish teeth. They gleamed in the light of now-lit lanterns.

"Don't tell me you're starting to like living in a village like this! If you want another week, I'm sure we can arrange to stay a bit longer."

"But I'm just a—" Toboe began, but her older sister cut her off with a wave of her hand.

"But _I'm_ not," she pointed out cooly. The Ookamizuka girl gaped up at her. "If you want another week to say your goodbyes, then I can talk Father into staying for another week. I can't promise you much more time than that, though." Toboe nodded.

"Temari-chan was there," the girl put in. Fumoto nodded. "She's taller than me now. Can you believe that?"

"Why not? She is older than you, after all." Fumoto paused. "So those girls you were with...have you ever thought about inviting them down to spend a night at our camp?"

"Would Father let me do that?" Toboe asked, raising her eyebrows. Fumoto winked. "Oh, he would if _you _told him?" She nodded. "Where would you sleep?"

"I can always bum around in Aunt Ke's tent. Remember, she's got a tent for two all to herself." Toboe nodded, and Fumoto continued, "Besides, the one we sleep in is bigger than most—Father fully expects me to win a Deltabattle someday."

"He really expects a lot of you," Toboe observed. Fumoto sighed somewhat happily, and Toboe realized her sister enjoyed the heightened expectations of their parents. _I bet she's got her sights set on Alpha,_ she thought. It would be just like her over-achieving sister to shoot for the highest position in the pack. "Do you really think he'll let me...And do you really think they'd want to?"

"You don't know much about socializing outside the pack, do you, nee-chan? They're your _friends_," Fumoto replied breezily. "Friends _love_ to spend nights together, staying up all night and talking about things. Think about the two of us, how much we talk before going to sleep, and make that last all night. That's what you'd be doing."

The idea of staying up past midnight with the village girls, chatting about...well, whatever the girls wanted to talk about, sounded appealing to her. Toboe had really gone outside her comfort zone at this village. Instead of staying within pack borders, she had gone into the village, found girls her own age, and made friends. The whole idea thrilled her. Spending a night with those girls? Incredible! But would they all fit in one tent?

The answer, likely, was yes—at least, if it was the same tent Toboe had been sleeping in since they reached the village. The tent Fumoto and Toboe shared was sized to fit two adults, with plenty of space for their backframe packs, their wolves' travoises, as well as room for them to set up their mats and sleep, and for their wolves (who were almost as large as their partners) to stretch out beside them. All this, and plenty of personal space. In short, the tent was huge. It would easily fit six teenage girls...and even Shiromaru (he wasn't that big, anyway). Toboe's step lightened.

"By the way," Fumoto murmured casually, passing her sister a handful of spicy-smelling herbs, "I didn't want to say this in front of your friends, but you've got a bit of dog-smell on you. Inuzuka. Kinda gross, actually. You might want to hide it before Father gets a good sniff of you. No telling what he might do." Toboe nodded and quickly rubbed the herbs onto her shirt. They were the same herbs used to hide the smell of sweating bodies. Fumoto was helping her cover-up seem natural.

"Thanks," she whispered. "One of their pups was walking right next to me for a while. I guess his scent must've rubbed off onto me." Fumoto nodding, obviously glad said Inuzuka had not harmed her sister in any way. She pointed to where the pack was already starting to gather, and the two sisters sprinted over quickly.

;-:-;-:-;

It was nearing two in the morning when the Ookamizuka clan wandered back to their camp. Fumoto spent the walk with her parents, arguing and reasoning back and forth with them. Toboe was too far away to hear their conversation, but she knew Fumoto was trying to convince them to stay a little longer. She heard her own name a couple of times, and once her father glanced back to give her a quick look before turning his attention back to his older daughter. Shiromaru walked silently, his yellow eyes half-shut. He was tired. Toboe could feel it, just as she could feel every one of his emotions. It was making her tired as well. Before long, she was yawning.

_Sorry,_ the wolf beside her muttered. _I don't know why I'm so wiped-out._

"It's aight," Toboe assured him, bending down to lay a hand on his flank for a moment. "Not much further until we can head to bed. I just hope Fumoto can talk them into staying another week."

_I don't think we've ever done that before._

"Me neither. Makes you wonder what the rest of the clan will think if Fumoto succeeds..."

_It does._

When they reached the camp, Ookamizuka Alpha Unari called his clan together for a brief meeting. "The Moon glows with pride in her children!" he declared, raising his arms in the same gesture that had signaled the start of Northsong. The rest of the clan echoed the motion, and howls of joy rose into the humid air. "We have sung stories of our distant home and told stories of our secret hunts. The people of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Konoha, were pleased...they wish us to stay longer, perhaps a week."

Toboe wondered if that was really part of why they had chosen to stay longer. She _had_ noticed several of the clan talking with some of the villagers after the trading was completed, telling stories and jokes. _Maybe I'm not the only one who wants to stay,_ she thought, seeing several excited looks in the clan.

"Will we stay, Moonchildren?" Unari asked. There was an instant roar of approval, which drowned out one or two protests. The matter was settled. They would stay another week. Toboe was thrilled. That meant not only a night alone with her friends...but another week to be with Kiba! On an impulse, she leapt up and let out a few puppylike barks of agreement. A few murmured laughs ran through the crowd. With a sweeping gesture, Unari dismissed his clan.

The Ookamizuka clan, most of its members still fired up from the wild night they'd had, dispersed slowly. Some lifted their heads and sang a few snatches of a farewell song to the Moon. Others whispered rumors of attractive women, cute men, strange ninja, or particularly ill-behaved little village pups. A few were clearly glad to be allowed to sleep, making a beeline for their tents with their partners behind them. Toboe was among them, trotting in the direction of her tent with Shiromaru close at her heels.

The tired girl stripped off her dark clothing quickly, making sure to carefully lie it out to dry before she packed it away. It was ceremonial attire, to be treated very specially. Died dark, it would make her disappear under the wolf pelt she had worn, and would do so best on dark nights. That was why the lanterns had not been lit. The Ookamizuka needed darkness to vanish under their wolf skins. Toboe pulled hers out of its pouch and laid it out on her lap to study it.

The pelt had belonged to Shiromaru's grandsire's mate, a gentle she-wolf called Hai. Hai's partner had grown old and died (and at her partner's death, the wolf had simply howled in loss and keeled over herself), and her pelt was cured specifically for Toboe, who was an infant at the time. Toboe stroked Hai's pelt, gently twisting the perked ears to feel their downy fur. Her hand ran down the wolf's back and fondled the brushy tail. Shiromaru looked up. _Are you having fun?_ he asked mildly. Toboe nodded. She laid the old pelt out on top of the ceremonial clothes and slipped down under the covers.

Fumoto entered the tent a few minutes later, and likewise stripped off her clothes. Kiiromaru was draped in the pelt of a white wolf, who had, in all actuality, borne a striking resemblance to Shiromaru in life. In fact, the wolf's name _had_ been Shiromaru, and he was Hai's mate and Shiromaru's grandsire (Kiiromaru's as well, since the two were different-litter brothers). His fur had once been purest white; however, age had added tints of yellow to the guard hairs, making him a sort of pale gold color. After his death, his pelt had been cured for Fumoto's use. The yellow wolf dropped the old pelt overtop Fumoto's backframe. _Good dancing tonight, Grandsire,_ he murmured. _You and your mate did well._

"Disrespectful," Toboe muttered. Kiiromaru studied her briefly, then shook his head.

_I don't think so,_ he barked. _I thought it was a compliment._

_I wish I could have met them,_ Shiromaru said longingly. Fumoto smirked.

"Ah, they couldn't remember anyone's names, Shiromaru-pup," she told him. "They started getting a little fuzzy in the mind, if you know what I mean." Shiromaru nodded in reluctant agreement. "By the way, Toboe, it's all set up for you. Father agreed to stay another week, and said it's fine by him if you want to have a few friends over." Fumoto dropped down onto her bed with an exaggerated sigh. "He looked damn pleased that I would be spending a night with Aunt Ke, might I add."

"He's probably telling her right now to lay on all her best tips and secrets," Toboe snorted. Fumoto nodded unenthusiastically. "What, don't tell me you won't _enjoy_ being buried in all that wonderful knowledge!"

"Oh...I'll be _buried _in it, aight," Fumoto groaned. "I'll be so _buried _in it I won't be able to get out of the tent in the morning!" Toboe snickered. "You think I'm kidding, nee-chan? Ke will follow me if I get up to pee!"

"You _like_ all that attention, though."

"Not when it involves my oh-so-glorious future."

Toboe sat bolt upright in bed and glanced over at her older sister. Fumoto was running a comb through her satiny brown hair, twisting out the snarls with her delicate fingers. She looked up from a particularly thick knot at the younger girl. Toboe's expression was one of surprise. Those words had been growled with vast amounts of sarcasm and even...a tinge of regret? "You...don't want to be Alpha?" Toboe asked hesitantly. Fumoto sighed as she set down the comb and started to pull her hair back at the nape of her neck.

"I do, Toboe-chan...but Father insists that I do everything so quickly. So what if I mastered the art of taking on wolf form soon after I learned to walk on my own? So what if I never failed in any part I was given in a song or dance? So what if I'm smart and pretty and hard-working?" Fumoto sighed again. "It doesn't matter to him that I'm nowhere near old enough to consider taking on even the Omega...Father wants me to do one thing after another. I'm jealous of you. He never forces you to do anything, and even when you're recognized as a woman, he _still_ will put everything on my shoulders!"

"Tell him to ease up," Toboe suggested. "Tell him you want to have some spare time, and that _I_ want more responsibility."

"That would be like telling a she-wolf to stop nursing her pups," Fumoto retorted dully. "That would be like telling a caribou to walk into the hunter's jaws. That would be like telling us to couple with Inuzuka."

Toboe couldn't help a slight flinch at the last remark. Fumoto didn't seem to notice, but Kiiromaru raised his head curiously. Shiromaru looked his older brother dead in the eyes, something he, as a subordinate pup, should never do. Out of surprise, Kiiromaru actually looked away. The white wolf shuddered at the thrill of power that jolted through him at his older brother's surrender and snuggled closer to Toboe. The Ookamizuka girl laid a hand on his side. She, too, had felt the bolt of dominance.

"The point is, Father will never lighten up on me," Fumoto continued, running her fingers through Kiiromaru's golden ruff. "Don't worry too much, though, nee-chan. I'll be fine with Aunt Ke tomorrow. You just have a good time with your friends, aight?"

"Aight," Toboe agreed. "By the way, speaking of pups...do you think you could manage...?" She made a few gestures. Fumoto narrowed her eyes slightly. "It wouldn't have to be for long, I swear. I know what Yuki will do if it's too long, but...I really think they would like it and appreciate it."

"I'll do what I can, but..." Fumoto's expression became playful. "...Sooner or later, you're going to have to do something for me, pup. I give and I give and it won't be long before I decide to _take!_" She spat the last word out and snatched up Toboe's comb from where it sat beside the girl's pack. Toboe grunt-whined pleadingly, and it wasn't long before Fumoto quailed under the puppy-eyed stare, tossing the comb at her younger sister. "Some day," she threatened playfully. Toboe laughed and flopped back down on her bed.

"Night, nee-san. Dance among the auroras until they vanish with the sun."

"Race through the stars until morning steals them away. Good night, Toboe." Fumoto reached over and extinguished the lamp wick between her fingers. The next sound was a soft swear, for she had done so without first moistening her fingers. The swear was followed by a snicker from Toboe, then the thump of a bundle of clothes smacking into the girl's head. It wasn't long before the tent was filled with the soft breathing of sleeping wolves and humans.


End file.
